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Zoosk Spam: Ignore or remind them about GDPR?
Hi HN,
I recently got an "invitation" to Zoosk. Likely someone in my contacts registered to Zoosk and allowed Zoosk to harvest my email from their contacts list. This strategy is, unfortunately, not unique to Zoosk and was (likely still is) quite a popular strategy to achieve "hockey-stick" growth for many websites.
I feel my rights as a data citizen have been violated. IANAL, but I never gave my consent to Zoosk to collect my personal email and process it for the purpose of sending me spam. How should I (in the collective interested of European data subjects) behave?
1. Ignore the email, wait until they run out of cash, and let the problem sort out by itself. Don't feed the troll.
2. Request them to remove all my data under GDPR right to be forgotten. If enough people do this, it will add sufficient overhead to make their strategy unsustainable. In case a future leak shows that they don't properly erase data, they will likely have to close shop.
3. File a GDPR complaint to my national data authority. My experience with the Swedish one is that they are already overwhelmed and tend to reply "it is a problem, we don't have the resources to fix it".
Please advise.
- soonfries 6y agoGerman here. Experience with my DPA (LDI NRW) tells me, that they are overwhelmed, yes. But if you bring a case with a clear violation they work quiet fast. So, object to the usage of your data under Art. 21 (2) if you get any other email than telling you that they deleted your data, they are still using your data for direkt marketing and are in violation with Art. 5 (1b). In my experience this bumps above the "proportionate" hurdle for a fine by changing from negligent infringement to intentional infringement (Art. 83 (2b)).