Sports Direct fined for sending unsolicited emails

By

Nigel TAYLOR

Published
Sep 20, 2021

Sports Direct has been fined £70,000 for spamming consumers with millions of "nuisance" marketing emails.

The UK sportswear retailer is one of three companies fined a combined £500,000 for sending more than 354 million messages to people who hadn’t given permission for such communication, the Telegraph newspaper reported the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) as saying.

Sports Direct was fined for sending 2.5 million spam emails as part of a "re-engagement campaign" between December 2019 and February 2020, aimed at customers it hadn’t contacted for a while.

The ICO said that while the initial emails were within the law, subsequent messages weren’t because they contained marketing and were sent without consent. 

Andy Curry, the ICO's head of investigations, told the newspaper: "Getting a ping on your phone or constant unwanted messages on your laptop from a company you don’t want to hear from is frustrating and intrusive. 

"These companies should have known better. Today’s fines show the ICO will tackle unsolicited marketing, irrespective of whether the messages have been orchestrated by a small business or organisation or a leading household name." 

Curry added: “Companies that want to send direct marketing messages must first have people’s consent and people must understand what they are consenting to when they hand over their personal information.

Sports Direct did not respond to the newspaper’s requests for comment.