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Tiger Natural Gas, Inc. recently settled a class action privacy suit alleging that it illegally recorded sales calls with over 27,000 potential customers. Although Tiger hired a third party to handle its telemarketing, Tiger will pay $3.7 million on the claims as the advertiser with ultimate liability for non-compliance. According to the plaintiffs, neither company told the consumers the calls were recorded, as is required under California’s call recording law.
Continue Reading Utility Provider Settles Call Recording Lawsuit for $3.7 Million

Grove Pension Solutions Ltd is a UK-based company that helps people get “pension releases,” i.e. getting money out of their pensions. The company uses a vendor to conduct lead generation. That vendor would identify individuals who had given consent to get messages on a variety of third party websites (including for example, soapboxsurvey.co.uk). None of the individuals had a relationship with Grove, and the consents did not specifically name Grove. Grove sent almost 2 million messages to individuals following this process, after obtaining advice that doing so was compliant with applicable laws.
Continue Reading UK ICO Settles with Marketer Over Unsolicited Email Messages

Prior to the “Brexit” vote in 2016, the pro-Brexit campaign, Vote Leave, sent almost 200,000 unsolicited texts in violation of the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations (PECR), according to a recent settlement it reached with the ICO. Under those regulations, as the ICO outlines in its PECR guidance, consumers must either have opted into receiving texts or they must already be an existing customer who “bought . . . a similar product or service” in the past.
Continue Reading UK’s ICO Brings Texting Enforcement Action, Fines Vote Leave 40,000 Pounds

The U.K. data protection authority recently fined a lead generation company £90,000 ($118,000) for a 2017 unsolicited email marketing campaign. The company, Boost Finance Ltd, sent over 4 million emails promoting pre-paid funeral plans under the name findmeafuneralplan.com. In reaching its decision, the ICO (the UK data protection regulator), said that the company violated the UK’s Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations by sending the messages without consent.
Continue Reading UK Issues Fine for Unsolicited Funeral Marketing Emails