Is this illegal?

[downoutdoorstore]

A competitor of ours has my personal email address as I was buying stuff off him a long time ago.

The thing is that he recently sent out a newsletter to my private address and on it were the address of over 100 of his customers.

Would it be wrong / illegal etc for me to add all those address into my newsletter software and send out a newsletter for christmas offers?

Cheers,

Mick.

[eco2you]

Originally posted by downoutdoorstore
A competitor of ours has my personal email address as I was buying stuff off him a long time ago.

The thing is that he recently sent out a newsletter to my private address and on it were the address of over 100 of his customers.

Would it be wrong / illegal etc for me to add all those address into my newsletter software and send out a newsletter for christmas offers?

Cheers,

Mick.

You'd be in breach of the Data protection Act I think?

Not good news, and pretty unethical.

Also if a few of those people marked your email as spam, it may affect your website etc.

[richardh]

You're going to send them unsolicited promotions, so you'd probably be breaching some spam law.

Your competitor is also in breach of data protection.

[downoutdoorstore]

Yeah thats what I thought. He has sent them out using hotmail and you can see all the address at the top of the email.

Decided against it.

Thank guys!

[openmind]

Not illegal but you would effectively be sending out spam as the mailing list does not belong to you...

[Widgey]

If you sent me an email, but included an unsubscribe link (that actually worked), then I don't think I would have an issue with it.

However, that is only my opinion and others may think differently.

[openmind]

I would

I get enough rubbish about how to improve parts of my anatomy and the fact that I've inherited millions that I now actually make a point of ringing these companies up that say they have obtained my address and subject them to intense questioning about how, why and where they sent the email from if I'm in a particularly pedantic mood...

Always good listening to non-techie people squirm when they've done something they shouldn't be doing or they know is wrong...

**insert eveil laugh**

[James Smith]

Its spam in my book if I haven't actively asked to be put on your list.

[lukehome]

Its spam, mind you a company that my wife deals with sent her a list of customers names address and credit card details by mistake, then couldn't see what they did wrong.

[openmind]

For the love of God

How these companies ever survive is completely beyond me...

[QuikShop]

Originally posted by lukehome
Its spam, mind you a company that my wife deals with sent her a list of customers names address and credit card details by mistake, then couldn't see what they did wrong.

That's beyond belief, how could any company be so blind to the dangers??

They are breaking data protection laws posting credit card details in an email.