In September 2007 Yes Mobiles t/a Express Mobiles had a complaint upheld in connection with an advertisement it sent by text message. The ASA ruled that the identity of the advertiser was unclear, that it had not obtained explicit consent before sending the message and that it was a misleading advertisement because it id not tell recipients how to opt out of receiving further messages from Express Mobiles. A complete strike

And that is about all that happened. Express Mobiles has to to agree to obtain explicit consent from recipients before sending text messages. The ASA "reminded" them to identify themselves in adverts and to offer a clear opt-out. It also "asked" them to obtain guidance from the CAP Copy Advice team before advertising in future.

Although the tone of the adjudication is conciliatory the ultimate sanction of the ASA is a kind of black list which would prevent the media from accepting ads from this particular advertiser if it repeated its mistakes often enough. 

On the positive side, the adjudication illustrates that someone is enforcing the Ecommerce Regalations and the Privacy and Electronic Communications (anti-spam) regulations.  We could wish that the consequences were just a little harsher though....................

Mandy Webster
Data Protection Consulting