Data protection and a company emailing me their whole email database

[Reastie]

I got an email from a local company this morning advertising their new website. I think I enquired with them once a few years ago re a potential order. I didn't ask to be kept on their database or have further contact from them.

I've just had this email and I can see every person it's been sent to. There are maybe 500 other people. It includes companies and I noticed a personal email address of a local minor celebrity ( very very minor, more journalist than celeb).

I'm not very happy that all of these people now have my email address, especially the companies which I assume could theoretically now use my email for madkering purposes now they have it.

Is this ok to do? I'm not looking to take any legal action or anything like that, just wondering. I'm tempte to email the company to tell them I can see all of these emails addresses and I'm not that happy about sharing mine without asking, but I'm not sure whether this is an unreasonable request from a data protection perspective.

I suspect the company have had a barrage of emails pointing this out. I manage a few mailing databases and this isn't on - it's sharing contact information that might not be publicly available.
I go to great lengths to make sure I don't do this.

Thanks Harriet. I thought it didn't seem right.

If you want a nice relaxing rest of the year, report them to the Information Commissioners Office, and watch as absolutely nothing happens. It's cheaper than therapy.

This is why you have a BCc function in e-mail, so no-one else can see the e-mail addresses of recipients. Agree with the Information Commissioner notification.

The NHS did this to me and about 200 other people who needed support from the breastfeeding clinic. They wrote to apologise, but that was about it. Grr.