Direct marketing agencies walk a thin line between legitimate publicity and spam. An increasing number among them work within the deontological ethics of their profession. But even when they follow a few rules of good practice, sometimes it is their clients who do not.

Archibald Ingall Stretton manage direct marketing campaigns for O2, a mobile operator of Telefonica in the UK. The agency, part of the Havas Digital group of companies, help “transform [O2's] customers into fans of the brand”. They email hundreds of thousands of O2 customers using the email addresses that O2 provide them. O2 are legally bound to respect its customers instructions to not sent promotions, offers and any other communication of commercial nature. However it is not rare that email addresses of opt-out customers of O2 receive unsolicited emails from o2-mail.co.uk.

The domain name of the sender of the unsolicited emails is o2-email.co.uk. The name is confusingly similar to other domains owned by Telefónica O2 UK Limited for their emails to customers, such as o2.com and o2mail.co.uk. O2-email.co.uk is registered to Archibald Ingall Strettoon. Mails of Archibald Ingall Stretton use the “From:” name O2 UK and they are signed as “© 2010 Telefónica O2 UK Limited.”

Whether the negligence lies on O2, on Archibald Ingall Stretton or else, the true nature of those emails is “unsolicited commercial message”, colloquially known as spam.