NEWS & UPDATES

Vanquis Bank Limited reportedly instigated a campaign to promote and advertise its banking services by instructing a third party to send 870,749 spam text messages, and another 620,000 spam emails.

As recipients reportedly didn’t consent to receiving these types of messages, Vanquis were found in breach of the law and have been ordered to stop and pay a £75,000 fine.

Some 131 complaints about the texts were made to the 7726 spam reporting service.
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Xerpla Limited boasts of a range of services for companies who really want to get their business off the ground. The London-based firm say they provide innovative design, advertising, and web hosting and consultancy services for their customers.

However, they may be using the cheapest way to reach as many people as possible.

The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) received 14 complaints over emails sent from the firm, and therefore began investigating them. The ICO found that the firm was responsible for sending over 1,257,580 million spam emails to promote and advertise products and services on behalf of their customers.
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The U.S. Supreme Court is to hear a second significant case on digital privacy. Although digital data privacy is something that is fast becoming a common issue of debate, there remains a struggle to distinguish what the boundaries are when it comes to owning it or using it.

In this case, the dispute is between technology-giant Microsoft and the U.S. federal government. In 2013, U.S. prosecutors in a drug trafficking investigation obtained a warrant to search a suspect’s emails. It took the warrant to Microsoft demanding access to emails, and they put up a fight to stop access to them.
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U.S. District Judge, Lucy Koh, has said Yahoo must face huge lawsuits brought against them on behalf of over a billion individuals who had their personal data compromised in the well-reported Yahoo breaches.

Verizon communications acquired Yahoo for $4.76 billion in June in a bid to limit liability, and contended that victims didn’t have any legal standing to sue. Judge Koh rejected this over a 93-page decision and held that victims who had their personal data breached by Yahoo’s apparent multiple failures as a data controller could pursue breach of contract as well as unfair competition.
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Well-known online price comparison website MoneySupermarket.com has been issued a hefty fine by the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) for reportedly sending millions of unwanted emails to customers who’d opted out of receiving marketing correspondence.

The company offers to compare prices for insurance, energy, credit cards, savings etc., and it’s likely that there’s always a myriad of deals and offers in these sectors; but many customers don’t want an abundance of emails constantly updating them of new deals. As with all newsletters, customers have a choice to opt-out, but in this case, MoneySupermarket.com appeared to ignore them under the reportedly ‘false pretence‘ of a legitimate update.
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Email scamming is becoming more sophisticated and commonplace, studies and research has shown.

With bank scams, it’s arguably easier to detect as you would not expect an email from them warning you of a hack. However, you could expect email providers to email you regarding your account, and that’s one popular method used by scammers these days.
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