My suggestion about politely asking if people are individuals or not (which
you might argue is not actually marketing) was slightly tongue-in-cheek,
since it is inconceivable that anyone would bother to do that anyway.
It seems that the conclusion is clear: reputable people don't harvest e-mail
addresses for marketing purposes (aka, in this context, spam), because good
practice, EC Directives and UK legislation all say it's wrong, in one way or
another.
But at the risk of getting up everyone's noses, I would like to ask for a
survey on whether members of this list think e-mail addresses are personal
data or not. I have to advise people on the legal position as well as good
practice, and this question keeps coming up on training courses. I tell
people that good practice indicates treating e-mail addresses as personal
data, and that satisfies most people, but I don't feel 100% confident in
saying that the law regards e-mail addresses (on their own) as personal
data. Elizabeth France thought they were. The current ICO guidance seems
to suggest that they are not. I think they are, whatever the ICO says, but
I'd be very interested in what people on this list think on balance.
Paul Ticher
0116 273 8191
22 Stoughton Drive North, Leicester LE5 5UB
I hereby require any recipient of this message not to use my personal data
for direct marketing purposes.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Roland Perry" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Thursday, March 22, 2007 3:56 PM
Subject: Re: Obtaining email addresses from websites
> In message <013601c76c97$15ff8fc0$0200a8c0@PaulWork>, at 15:30:55 on Thu,
> 22 Mar 2007, Paul Ticher <[log in to unmask]> writes
>>
>>You therefore have two choices: don't harvest e-mail addresses, in case
>>you collect some that relate to individual subscribers, or politely e-mail
>>everyone first to ask them if they are an individual subscriber and only
>>send marketing e-mails to those who confirm that they are not.
>
> I have bad news for you: most experts I talk to say that you aren't even
> allowed to send that enquiry email. Your opportunity was when you obtained
> the email address, and if that was by scraping a website (or whatever)
> which does not afford such an opportunity, that just shows what an
> underhand process that scraping is.
>
>>The relation to Data Protection is much fuzzier because of the debate -
>>often rehearsed on this discussion list - about whether an e-mail address
>>on its own is personal data.
>
> Despite what people on this list may think, and how much they deny
> Elizabeth France's now ageing opinions on the matter, the Article 29
> Working Party are very clear on this issue, and as it's fundamentally
> European law, and they are at the heart of it, my money is with them.
> --
> Roland Perry
>
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