The Robinson List it is one of the tools available to the public to survive unwanted calls and text messages or commercial emails. However, not all companies comply with it, and this has become evident again. In recent days, for example, a company allegedly running an advertising campaign on behalf of Vodafone has been fined.
As seen in the official documentthe Spanish Data Protection Agency imposed a fine of 10,000 euros to a firm called Tecnocube Marketing SL. This occurred after it was verified that he made calls for commercial purposes to a person registered on the Robinson List since 2018.
The complaint originally included two telephone numbers that would have belonged to the company in question, although it was found that only one of them was. The complainant mentioned that, in the calls received, the fined company made references to a Vodafone advertising campaign. Nevertheless, the telephone operator disassociated itself from any relationship with the reported telephone lines.
“VODAFONE indicates that the claimant is on the internal and ADigital Robinson list [Asociación Española de la Economía Digital] and that the calling numbers do not correspond to any collaborator”, indicates the document.
The Robinson List and delays in responding to complaints
According to the ruling of the Spanish Data Protection Agency, the punished company infringed “article 48.1 b) of the LGT, in relation to article 23.4 of the LOPDGDD”. The final amount of the fine —10,000 euros— is because the breach of the legislation has been classified as minor. It can be said that the sanctioned company he got it cheapconsidering that the maximum punishment for infractions qualified in this way is 50,000 euros.
This episode makes it clear that signing up for the Robinson List is a good way to stop unwanted advertising, and that it’s also possible to force companies to comply. However, it also reveals the slowness of the parties involved to resolve this type of situation.
In this case, the complaint was made on July 22, 2021, the same day that the complaining party received the unwanted commercial calls. While the resolution was only published on October 14 last. I mean they had to go more than 14 months to arrive at a definition regarding the subject. It feels like too much time to respond to a problem that requires expeditious measures.
If you want to know in depth what the Robinson List consists of and how to sign up, we invite you to read this article that we published some time ago in hypertextual. You can also contact the Spanish Association of Digital Economy through the channels mentioned on their website.