The organisers of the annual Golden Spiders Awards have offered to pay €500 compensation to charity after a businesswoman who claimed she was being spammed made a complaint to the Data Protection Commission.
Maryrose Lyons from Brightspark Consulting is understood to have received up to six communications from the Golden Spiders asking her to pay to attend the event, despite the fact that she requested to have her name removed from its list.
The annual internet awards are organised by Business & Finance magazine and are sponsored each year by Eircom.
Lyons claimed she found herself subjected to message after message from the Golden Spiders even after she had unsubscribed and made a complaint to the Data Protection Commission, which then communicated with the awards’ organisers.
“The actions of the Golden Spiders were very disappointing and can damage the web industry as a whole if people get the message that spamming is a legitimate form of doing business,” Lyons said this morning.
“I’m glad that the Data Protection Commissioner intervened and spoke to them. But I would be even more pleased to know that companies understand and respect customers or potential customers and adhere to the very clear laws on spam,” Lyons said.
The organisers of the Golden Spiders are understood to have proposed to make a donation to Lyons’ charity of choice in order to resolve the dispute.
Lyons selected the charity Daisyhouse, which provides housing to single homeless adults.
By John Kennedy
