• by Ray Schultz , July 5, 2017

Wetherspoons, the UK retail chain, has deleted its entire email list containing data on 700,000 customers.

“Following our data breach in December 2015 we have been reviewing all the data we hold and looking to minimize," a spokesperson said, according to the UK publication Marketing Week. “We felt, on balance, that we would rather not hold even email addresses for customers. The less customer information we have, which now is almost none, then the less risk associated with data.”

The seeming laudatory action has drawn mixed reviews, at least from Marketing Week. 

“The cynic might argue Wetherspoons is just protecting its back from a potential fine amid the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) increasingly clamping down on brands that hassle customers with email marketing or misuse their data. And you know what, there’s probably some truth to this argument," Marketing Week continued. 

The airline Flybe was fined by the Information Commissioner’s Office in March for sending 3 million emails asking customers to update their personal details, Marketing Week noted. And Morrisons was fined for emailing customers who had opted out of marketing messages related to its loyalty card, it added.

The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) takes effect next May, but only 54% of the firms surveyed by the UK Direct Marketing Association expect to be compliant. 

A recent survey by Experian also showed that companies are not prepared for the GDPR. Of 558 IT, IT security and compliance professionals polled globally, only 24 percent said their firms have a high degree of readiness to adhere to the GDPR, and 59% stated that their companies do not understand what they need to do to comply.