letter from data ireland

[johnwilliams]

recently got a letter from a company called data Ireland, they apparently operate the irish consumer marketing database (icmd) they say their clients send out direct marketing post, they have enclosed a opt out form for us to fill out and return to them ,they would then suppress our name in the icmd and our name no longer available to their clients,
just wondering is their a hidden scam (say like confirming an active address by returning form ?) or are they genuine

 

[JohnJay]

I heard about this on Today FM last week.
Apparently Data Ireland are owned by An Post and "sell" their database to companies that want to direct mail. The legal advice on Today FM was to opt out if you wanted. The legal guy also had some doubt about them selling info on people who didn't choose to opt out.

 

[Palerider]

I rang them, queried why their marketing letter to me was undated and unsigned, no answers to questions, they are a subsidiary of An Post but that was not mentioned in the letter which to my mind was poorly constructed. I saw no benefit to me so binned the letter.

 

[newtothis]

I got one of these a couple of weeks ago and wrote back to them, asking where they got my name from and asking them to delete it from their database. I didn't sign the opt-out form as it was to request that my name be "suppressed" from their database, whatever that means. They wrote back saying they got my name from the electoral register some years ago (before it was made illegal to do this), and confirming my name was now suppressed from their database. I still don't know what that means, but I gave up at that point. As far as I know if you don't opt-out, you're leaving yourself open to receiving junk mail addressed to you. See [broken link removed] for more details on this.

 

[newtothis]

As a further note, I've just read this: [broken link removed] My reading is that there's an obligation to use the most up-to-date register (as information is must be kept up-to-date). However, unless you've asked for it, this cannot be used for anything other than electoral purposes. This opt-out form looks like an attempt to get round this. I'm no legal expert, but this strikes me that they are on very shaky ground, as in general you have to explicitly opt-in to receive direct marketing. Sounds like the Data Protection Commissioner needs to be made aware of this....