The U.K. Information Commissioner's Office has fined Vanquis Bank Limited for instigating a spam campaign that included 870,849 text messages and 620,000 emails to promote credit cards. Vanquis was fined 75,000 GBP for relying on indirect consent. The ICO also announced that Xerpla was fined 50,000 GBP for sending nearly 1.26 million spam emails as part of a promotional marketing campaign. The ICO found Xerpla's privacy policy was not “clear and specific enough” to enlist consent from its recipients. ICO Head of Enforcement Steve Eckersley said, “These firms should have taken responsibility for ensuring they had obtained clear and specific consent for the sending of the messages. They didn’t and that is unacceptable.”
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