ICO fines HelloFresh £140k for spam texts and emails • Hacker News Board

Re: ICO fines HelloFresh £140k for spam texts and emails

#141

Post by Silhouette » Mon, Jan 15, 2024, 11:45 AM UTC

Nextgrid wrote: post #137

Silhouette wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Useless" seems unfair and inaccurate. In this case it appears they have successfully addressed a problem for example. Like most UK government services the ICO are currently operating with a fraction of the resources they need to meet the responsibilities they've been given. While I respect your personal effort to get bad actors to change and I share your disappointment that the officials who should be helping have n…

> the ICO are currently operating with a fraction of the resources But the amount of resources shouldn't dictate the penalty amount once resources have already been expended on the investigation? My problem with the ICO as it stands is that the bar for a complaint is very high, giving the company many chances to selectively rectify the situation but only for the complainant - imagine if the penalty for theft was just…

But the amount of resources shouldn't dictate the penalty amount once resources have already been expended on the investigation?

I don't know enough about the process to answer that. Maybe it's true but if penalties can be challenged and a higher penalty will in practice cost more to defend then maybe not.

FWIW I agree there is a morality problem in keeping rules that are not then effectively enforced. But I'd rather have a quantitative problem that the principle is being recognised and a penalty applied even though the penalty isn't yet big enough to represent a true deterrent than the qualitative problem that there is no mechanism to penalise bad behaviour at all. One of these is much easier to push towards a good solution over time than the other. And I'd also rather converge on a good solution from this direction than go in very heavy-handed as some were suggesting elsewhere in this discussion and potentially cause catastrophic side effects very quickly.

Re: ICO fines HelloFresh £140k for spam texts and emails

#142

Post by willcipriano » Mon, Jan 15, 2024, 2:47 PM UTC

Silhouette wrote: post #141

Nextgrid wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the ICO are currently operating with a fraction of the resources But the amount of resources shouldn't dictate the penalty amount once resources have already been expended on the investigation? My problem with the ICO as it stands is that the bar for a complaint is very high, giving the company many chances to selectively rectify the situation but only for the complainant - imagine if the penalty for theft was just…

But the amount of resources shouldn't dictate the penalty amount once resources have already been expended on the investigation? I don't know enough about the process to answer that. Maybe it's true but if penalties can be challenged and a higher penalty will in practice cost more to defend then maybe not. FWIW I agree there is a morality problem in keeping rules that are not then effectively enforced. But I'd rather…

> Maybe it's true but if penalties can be challenged and a higher penalty will in practice cost more to defend then maybe not.

That ascribes a level of foresight that you don't see anywhere else in government. Very unlikely, corruption more probable explanation.

Re: ICO fines HelloFresh £140k for spam texts and emails

#143

Post by HatchedLake721 » Mon, Jan 15, 2024, 5:35 PM UTC

JeffSnazz wrote: post #125

HatchedLake721 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s already the case with GDPR. (B2B spam is different) If you get a random sales/marketing email, you have the right to find out where they got your details from and where did they get your consent to email you.

> It’s already the case with GDPR. This doesn't matter much when emails are sold and sent from outside the EU/UK. This would probably need to be a protocol-level adjustment to ensure consent before contact.

Doesn't matter where it's sent from, GDPR still applies.

A legal business targeting people in the EU must still comply with GDPR, hence still have to tell you where they got your data and consent from.

Personally since GDPR got introduced it reduced number of cold calls and emails I receive.

No longer can companies randomly add my email address to their Mailchimp accounts.

And no longer companies can easily sell my data from one to another.

Is it perfect? No. Can it be better? Yes. Did it bring benefits? Yes

Re: ICO fines HelloFresh £140k for spam texts and emails

#144

Post by Silhouette » Mon, Jan 15, 2024, 7:56 PM UTC

willcipriano wrote: post #142

Silhouette wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But the amount of resources shouldn't dictate the penalty amount once resources have already been expended on the investigation? I don't know enough about the process to answer that. Maybe it's true but if penalties can be challenged and a higher penalty will in practice cost more to defend then maybe not. FWIW I agree there is a morality problem in keeping rules that are not then effectively enforced. But I'd rather…

> Maybe it's true but if penalties can be challenged and a higher penalty will in practice cost more to defend then maybe not. That ascribes a level of foresight that you don't see anywhere else in government. Very unlikely, corruption more probable explanation.

Again I don't think that's entirely fair. There are plenty of competent and well-intentioned people working within "government" in the broad sense in this country. The public sector here is huge and does a lot of useful things, many of which we take for granted but would certainly miss if they went away. We just notice the big screw-ups because when you're running a national government for tens of millions of people those headline failures are going to have an impact on a lot of people.

When it comes to government I am certainly a sceptic of modern politics but with the rank and file staff in the civil service, QUANGOs, and other government-run services I prefer to assume good faith. Clearly a lot of those people got dealt a bad hand with the recent administrations in particular but no matter which colour of politics is currently running the show there will always be some element of that and yet those useful things still get done.