The fact that spam mails are usually not a good idea for companies should have been talked about by now. The fact that spam mails can be admonished in principle should be clear to most people – let us say those who are comprehensible to the German judiciary. The fact that spam is not limited to email(see this post) and that you are also liable for the actions of a service provider(see this post) can be read here on the blog. No court has yet had to decide whether spammail, which usually triggers a data breach caused by the storage of the e-mail data, can result in pain money. So far. Because the district court Diez now had to deal with the question.
However, the court concludes that it is 50,00 Euro for a spam mail (through an unsolicited newsletter) however appropriate.
Incidentally, the newsletter was one of the most notorious emails from last year, more precisely from 25.05.2018 – when the GDPR became valid. On that day, some lawyer in Germany, possibly drunk from the celebration of the huge revenues due to the creation of data protection declarations, must have advised a large number of companies that because of the GDPR one allegedly new consents for newsletter. A legal view that probably made 99 of the IT lawyers swell on the floor with laughter. However, the applicant took the view that the newsletter sent was inadmissible and, referring to Article 82(1) of the GDPR, claimed at least EUR 500.00 in pain compensation.
The court saw this, fortunately, but differently
On the one hand, a serious violation of the right of personality is no longer necessary. On the other hand, it is still not necessary to grant compensation for a minor offence without serious impairment or for any individual inconvenience; on the contrary, the person concerned must have suffered a noticeable disadvantage and it must be concerned with an objectively comprehensible impairment of personal matters with a certain weight […].
However, the district court of Diez considered the already sentenced 50.00 euros to be a given. For the plaintiff, however, the case was nevertheless a loss-making transaction, since he must also bear the costs for the district court of Koblenz, which was initially seised.
