Dear conservative party. When I wrote you with my opposition to bill C-17 I did NOT sign up for your newsletter. Thanks for the SPAM.
Posted Nov 11, 2010, 2:24 PM UTC
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And yes, I did report it as SPAM to gmail.
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Did you email the Conservative Party or a Conservative MP at their Parliamentary email address?
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MP at their parliamentary address as well as the related ministers.
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In that case, it seems like it would be a good thing to bring to the attention of public officials (either with the Privacy Commissioner, the Parliamentary Ethics Commissioner, or the Opposition). Misappropriating official correspondence for the purpose of creating a partisan mailing list is a definite ethical failing and should, if it isn't already, be against the rules.
They may have plausible deniability, though. From what I've read, the Conservatives tend to pull in their contact lists from a broad number of sources (including asking their supporters for the names and #s of possible supporters). Though it seems unlikely that is how they got your address.
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Hi [email protected] !
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ouuuch
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File a report with the Privacy Commissioner's Office of Canada.
Surprisingly, there is a lot of publicity right now with regards to privacy complaints, and this could be very effective.
There have been quite a few companies in the news for doing shit like that.
Unfortunately, his prior communication with them makes it a-okay from a legal perspective for them to sign him up for their newsletter. Additionally politicians from all parties made their own messages legally non-spam when they wrote the legislation. Not good...
I'd say a letter to the editor in the local newspaper to publicly call them on it might be effective.
No, actually it doesn't. Read the legislation and previous findings on privacy situations like this.
To receive email from an organization, you must give the explicit permission - it is not acceptable to sign them up due simply due to communication with that organization.
Specifically, look at the Alberta Privacy Commissioner's Office vs Ticketmaster (of which I was the complainant, and the Commissioner's Office ruled in my favour).
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I believe a complaint with the Ethics Commissioner is also in order.
E-mailing your MP is government business, not party business. Sadly this is not the first time the CPC has mixed the two.