Consumers' Association in spamfest

Watchdog bites itself

By Tim Richardson • Get more from this author

Posted in Music and Media, 14th June 2000 14:58 GMT

The Consumers' Association (CA) has responded to criticisms that it is failing to champion the cause of Net users against spam.

In a short response to the 20 people who emailed their views to the CA following a Register investigation, the consumer watchdog said: "The Consumers' Association is currently reviewing the policy on this issue and your views will be taken into account as part of that review."

But if you think this is a sign that the CA has grasped the issue - think again.

In a clear breach of Netiquette, it spammed all twenty with the same reply and failed to blank the identity of the recipients.

As one of those who received the CA email explained: "An interesting point to note is that CA clearly understand so much about email that they see no problem with addressing their reply in the clear to a whole bunch of recipients at once." Quite. ®