Bulk Email Marketing under Spotlight in ‘Spamming’ Libel Case

30/01/2015


The legitimacy of bulk email marketing is likely to come under the legal spotlight after two entrepreneurs – who were incensed to see themselves described as ‘known spam offenders’ on the Internet – launched High Court libel proceedings.

The executives, both of whom lived in California, had in the past been involved in the email marketing business. They were named on the website of a non-profit making company which devoted itself to tracking and reporting sources of spam. For six months, they featured on the website’s ‘register of known spam offenders’ and right at the top of its list of ‘the top 10 world’s worst spammers’.

The company sought to knock out the executives’ defamation claims on the basis that they amounted to an abuse of process. It was argued that the pair had no significant reputation in Britain; that the level of publication was minimal and that they had suffered no serious harm. The company also submitted that the words complained of were both ‘true’ and justified in the public interest.

In refusing the company’s application, and opening the way for the executives to pursue their case to a full trial, the Court found that they had ‘a real prospect’ of establishing that the publications had caused serious harm to their reputations. Whilst expressing no concluded views on the viability of the company’s defences, the Court ruled that the words complained of implied that the executives had been engaged in seriously unlawful and deceitful conduct over a period of years.

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