UK spam scandal update: Deeper and messier than feared

Last month silicon.com published a series of articles detailing an apparently bungled consultation by the Department of Trade and Industry which lumbered the UK with flawed laws that effectively legitimised the sending of spam.

We exposed a consultation to which a number of parties with an apparent vested interest in sending spam appeared to be key contributors.

But now the DTI has revealed it provided the wrong information to silicon.com in response to a Freedom of Information Act enquiry, and it also appears the information which senior DTI ministers claimed existed to show support for light touch legislation doesn't even exist.

During the course of the Freedom of Information Act enquiry, the DTI failed to meet the required deadline, requesting an extension. But despite being granted extra time, the information provided appears to have been erroneous. This wasn't made any easier by the consultation in 2003 when respondents and ministers appeared to be unclear on what they were actually being consulted on.

Originally the DTI claimed 247 companies and individuals had called for no tightening of anti-spam laws but it has subsequently admitted that list was wrongly compiled from companies who had actually responded to a wider consultation which included telephone and fax marketing as well.

Which raised the question of what happened to those responses specifically related to the anti-spam consultation?

The DTI has now confirmed to silicon.com that it could only find six responses, despite the fact former ecommerce minister Stephen Timms cited a great deal more interest in maintaining the rights of business-to-business email marketing companies in the wake of the consultation.

Anti-spam campaigner Steve Linford from SpamHaus told silicon.com he had numerous conversations with Timms around the time of consultation, during which he was told the majority of businesses wanted to receive spam.

A spokesman for the DTI told silicon.com: "The list sent in response to your request for the names of organisations that supported opt-out for business-to-business email marketing was incorrect.

"The 2003 consultation covered phone and fax privacy issues as well as unsolicited direct emails."

"This oversight was a genuine mistake," added the spokesman.

"We have reviewed the responses in detail to ensure that we provide you with an accurate list and have found that six organisations supported opt-out for business-to-business direct marketing emails."

Those six organisations, according to the DTI, were Cable & Wireless, Information & Research Services, Holiday-Rentals.com, Mardev, Masterclass and Taylor Wessing.

"None of the six respondents supported indiscriminate targeting by email and were specific about why they supported opt-out," added the spokesman. silicon.com has seen all six responses.