ASDA and Topshop slammed for spam

More than 75 per cent of emails sent from UK businesses are unwanted and unsolicited, according to spam-monitoring firm Spam Ratings.

The company rates retailers on how much spam they send and found that ASDA, Topshop and Marks & Spencer were not following best practice guidelines.

The Direct Marketing Association (DMA) and the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) have clear codes telling businesses not to send out emails that customers haven't explicitly asked for, with both bodies putting the onus on the company to make consent clear.

However, these three retailers do not comply with these guidelines and M&S's registration form automatically signs up customers to email updates by default.

The report - which looked at the emails sent from 10,000 sites over a 12-month period - also found that 40 per cent of websites send potentially dangerous emails and three in 10 of the unwanted emails actually came from third parties.

Spam Ratings said that this indicates the sites are selling on personal data on a "worrying scale".

Andy Yates, co-founder of Spam Ratings, said: "It's amazing how many of us appear to accept spam and the everyday dangers and growing nuisance it brings.

"It shouldn't be like this - and it doesn't have to be. Spam really isn't a mystery. It comes from websites we sign up to who send us emails we haven't asked for, or worse still sell on our details to potentially dangerous third parties," he continued.

Security experts found in August that the Rustock botnet is responsible for 43 billion spam emails every day.