Update on KLM Spam Email
April 28, 2009 at 9:17 am
I contacted the Data Protection Commissioners to find out more about the status of my spam email complaint about KLM. They wrote to KLM on 3 April and again on 20 April. They have also written to the Privacy Office of KLM which is based in Holland.
[All these letters - it's very exciting... in a postal kind of way]
To date KLM has been ignoring them. But now they’ve been onto the Dutch equivalent of the Data Protection Commissioners – and there’s an all Europe-wide APB out for them… No, actually they have provided more contact details for our guys to follow up on.
We’ll wait and see if big corporate KLM chooses to engage or ignore.
Tags: Data Protection Commissioners, KLM Spam Email
Update on KLM Complaint
April 6, 2009 at 10:31 am
It’s taken a bit of to-ing and fro-ing in order to get the Data Protection Commissioners to:
(a) accept that mine was an official complaint – and hence one demanding action on their part
(b) use my name and not call me “To Whom It May Concern”
Now that we’ve got that established, I received a reply on Friday from one Alan O’Grady which put my mind at rest a bit (the using their full legal powers bit):
But why do the need 10-12 weeks to respond?
That’s 3 months; a short jail term. In that time, at the rate that KLM is spamming me, I’ll have received around 12 more emails from them. That’s not acceptable.
The next line in the Data Protection Commissioner’s email reveals their true intention:
My experience from the other episode with the Golden Spiders spamming me is that this line means the offending (large) company who is doing the spamming can get away with saying they are sorry and possibly giving a donation to a charity to make us all feel better. In my experience, despite not really being satisfied with this, I accepted – and then I still had to push the Data Protection Commissioners to make the Golden Spiders pay.
So in light of this, I am going to reply to Mr O’Grady today and ask him to confirm in writing for me that if it does go to this settlement, that he will confirm that any settlement will be received within 14 days and will not necessitate me having to spend more of my time chasing it up.
Already I’m weary.
A question: I am one person complaining about the KLM emails. If we were a group of 10 or 20 or 50 individuals making a similar complaint, would the Data Protection Commissioners
(a) take the same amount of time? (12 weeks)
(b) still go for an amicable resolution?
If yes to the latter, then I think that’s wrong. If a large group of people are sufficiently angry to make a complaint, why does the offender get treated in exactly the same way?
