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Commercial damage?  Well, no.  But the other side of the issue is a better return on investment.  The whole point is to render a better return to shareholders, and that means spending fewer pennies for each pound earned.

Managing a huge database has a large cost, a scalable cost.  Data has a quantifiable value, and that value is the greater if permissions are gathered and acted upon.  Marketing to that dataset effectively both costs less and creates a better yield.  And a strong part of that is that the PECR militates towards good and permission based practices.

Prior to the PECR I worked as a consultant to Peoplesoft, then not under the Oracle umbrella, to help them cleanse their database and introduce Permission Based Marketing initially in Europe.  Their sales enquiries went DOWN and their profitability went UP, both substantially.  And their reputation, even in the difficult time of a hostile takeover, went sky high.  Reputation risk from poor marketing all but became a thing of the past.  And their ability to respond properly to the very few complaints they still received (people still forget that they have given permission) saved them quite large costs that they would previously have incurred to investigate and resolve them.

Commercial damage is damage to the bottom line when all is said and done

Tim Turner wrote:
[log in to unmask]" type="cite">
Is there any evidence that any commercial company has ever suffered any significant commercial damage on the basis of their email habits?
 
I doubt it. I could name many big companies with awful data protection and PECR practices who thrive because their products and services are cheap. The large majority of people who ignore the junk and the minority who are annoyed are - I suspect - offset by the other minority who respond. Otherwise, why would anyone do it? Apart from the anecdotes, I have never seen any proof from the IC or anyone else that people make decisions on what products or services to buy on the basis of DP or PECR.

From: This list is for those interested in Data Protection issues [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Tim Trent
Sent: Wed 23 April 2008 16:13
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [data-protection] Oh the irony

It depends if you are the subscriber at that email address and an individual.  But this is also why Permission Based Marketing is essential.  Blasting emails, even if lawful, to email lists that have not been properly opted in to is a recipe for reputation disaster whether lawful or not.

Nigel Roberts wrote:
[log in to unmask]" type="cite">As far as I'm concerned one of the most interesting parts of the PECR and the directive is the phrase 'individual subscriber'.

One of the techniques used by the House of Lords (soon to be Supreme Court) in construction is, where European Law is concerned, looking at the words used in the Directive the transposing legislation is supposed to implete, and even the various versions in other Community languages.

Now looking at the directive, it appears to me that the prohibition of direct marketing by email is intended to protect natural persons. The UK's 'individual subscribers' phrase appears to imply a narrower construction.

So is '[log in to unmask]', sitting in his office at work, within or without r.22 of PECR 2003?

On reading the Directive, I've come to a fairly strong conclusion. What do others think?



Tim Trent wrote:
Chaps, have you issued a complaint to the UKIC?  And have you considered the example Nigel Roberts has set by issuing either a summons or a demand for payment to charity as an out of court settlement?

Roland Perry wrote:
In message <[log in to unmask]>, at 12:23:45 on Wed, 23 Apr 2008, Ekin Caglar <[log in to unmask]> writes
Just got another one! Easycheck from selectabase.co.uk... On their unregistration page, they state "We require that our clients follow email best practice and send only permission based emails. We do not allow them to use Selectabase Ltd to send Unsolicited Emails."

Talk about irony...  But of course, they'll claim they've sent the mail to [log in to unmask], not to an individual. And I'll claim it's very easy to find out on whose desk sales@ emails land in our organisation!

Ignore the email address, mine was sent to "Dear Dr Lamb", whoever he might be. Sounds like an individual to me - and an instant alert that they are either doing a dictionary attack, or have bought a very broken list off someone. That's a Fourth Principle offence, to add to all the others...



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