Phone shop and beauty clinic fined for spam texts

Data Protection Commissioner takes prosecutions against Carphone Warehouse and Therapie

Assistant data protection commissioner Tony Delaney who today took prosecutions against the Carphone Warehouse and Therapie Clinic for sending unsolicited spam texts. Photograph: Dara Mac Dónaill/The Irish Times
Assistant data protection commissioner Tony Delaney who today took prosecutions against the Carphone Warehouse and Therapie Clinic for sending unsolicited spam texts. Photograph: Dara Mac Dónaill/The Irish Times

A phone shop and a beauty clinic were fined €6,000 and €3,000 respectively when they were prosecuted today for sending spam text messages.

The Data Protection Commissioner took cases against The Carphone Warehouse Ltd and Valterous Ltd (trading as Therapie Clinic). Both companies had previously been convicted in December 2012 for similar unsolicited marketing offences.

Carphone Warehouse pleaded guilty before Dublin District Court to five charges of sending unsolicited marketing texts to two individuals.

Judge John O’Neill convicted it on four counts and took the fifth into account. He imposed fines of €1,500 for each of the convictions.

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Valterous Ltd pleaded guilty to three charges of sending unsolicited marketing texts to two people.

Judge O’Neill convicted on two charges, imposing a fine of €1,500 for each. He took the third into account.

Both defendants agreed to pay the Data Protection Commissioner’s costs in the cases.