1. Complaint upheld
The advertisers sent a copy of the contract between them and the liquidated company that confirmed the sale of the database of customer e-mail addresses. They pointed out that the contract stated ” … the Buyer has agreed to buy a customer list … that contains approximately 216,000 email addresses representing all of the active customers (i.e. customers who have made at least one purchase from the Seller within the period of 12 months immediately preceding the date of this Agreement) known to the Liquidators who have given opt-in consent (which has not been withdrawn and is still current at the date of this Agreement) to receive electronic communications from third parties …”.

The advertisers said the opt-in consent of customers to receive e-mails from third parties was fundamental to their decision to purchase the database and they had required it to be part of the contract. They stated that the complainant’s e-mail address had been unsubscribed from the databases of their trading companies.

The Authority noted the contract stated that the customers whose e-mail addresses were being sold had given opt-in consent to receive electronic communications from third parties. It also noted the contract included declarations from partners of the liquidated company that stated “I confirm that the customer database … comprises a list of e-mail addresses of former customers of the company all of whom, to the best of my knowledge and belief, have agreed to receive electronic communications from third parties …”.

The Authority acknowledged that the advertisers bought the database in good faith. It noted the complainant denied that he agreed to receive commercial e-mails from third parties. The Authority considered that the advertisers had not sent evidence to show that the complainant, or any of the other customers of the liquidated company whose e-mail addresses were sold, had given their explicit consent to the liquidated company to pass on their details to third parties.

The Authority considered it to be the responsibility of third party marketers to ensure that explicit consent was provided to the permission-holder in the first instance and to provide the Authority with evidence of that explicit consent upon request. It told the advertisers to acquire the explicit consent of consumers before sending them commercial e-mails in future.

2. Complaint upheld
The advertisers asserted that they included an “unsubscribe” facility in their e-mails as standard practice but, on this occasion, that facility had been omitted from the e-mail by mistake. They said the error had been rectified.

The Authority noted the “unsubscribe” facility was omitted in error and told the advertisers to take more care in future to ensure that it was included.

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When the customer bought the email addresses that were apparently opted-in to the database, I imagine its probably not the best idea to mail all the customers asking them if they ‘want’ to be on the mailing list. 

Although the database was arguably bought in good faith, the opt-out link missing didn’t help.

In our opinion, any email received advertising a commercial product is spam when it’s sent through ‘trusted third parties’.  Hopefully people will realise that buying databases of email addresses isn’t a good idea.

Source
Advertising standards adjudication