The ICO has fined four firms a total of £600,000:
- Barrington Claims Limited had made over 15 million automated calls about PPI;
- Newday Limited used other firms to send 44.7 million spam emails to promote its financial products to people who had subscribed to websites the other firms operated;
- Goody Market UK Limited, operator of an insurance price comparison site, sent over 110,000 spam texts to a list of people it purchased from a data broker. ICO found it had relied on verbal assurances from the broker that the data had previously been used in text marketing; and
- TFLI Limited sent around 1.19 million spam texts promoting a loan website, again using personal details provided by other companies. ICO found it was negligent in failing to take responsibility for ensuring people had agreed to receive the messages.