[thechat] Telemarketers get what they deserve :)

Martin martin at members.evolt.org
Fri May 24 03:49:01 CDT 2002


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On Friday, May 24, 2002, at 09:29  am, Madhu Menon wrote:

> I'm so glad I live in a country where telemarketing hasn't quite caught
> on. :)

And I'm glad I live in one where we have
http://www.tpsonline.org.uk/tpsr/html/default.asp
http://www.dataprotection.gov.uk/principl.htm
and they're enforced.

Good DPA example - when the UK energy market was deregulated, British
Gas used their customer file to write with an offer about their
electricity services. The Data Protection Registrar went ballistic and
blocked them from using their database for any purpose until it was all
sorted out.

Now as it happens, the government's response was "but that was the
*point* of deregulation" and ruled that because electricity was within
the bounds of 'stuff that an energy supply company would do', the
restriction was lifted. However, BG can't use their gas supply customer
file to offer their (otherwise unrelated) financial services
(http://www.goldfish.co.uk/)

Incidentally, that last dp principle is why UK companies can't normally
share data with US ones.

Cheers
Martin
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