The complainant received an email from Who-remembers-me.com, which claimed a friend wanted to recommend the site, but did not supply the name of the friend.
The email said: "Your e-mail address has been entered into the Who-Remembers-Me.com 'Tell a friend' link by one of your friends in order for us to send you a short note recommending this website as they feel it may be of interest to you."
The ASA contacted the website to investigate the complainant's complaint that the email was unsolicited and question whether a friend had actually entered the email address.
Who-Remembers-Me said it could not reveal any details about who submitted the email address because of practical and legal restrictions. It also used the defence that the email was sent to a business domain name and there was no legal requirement for explicit consent for marketing emails sent to those addresses.
In its judgment, the ASA expressed concern to the business that by operating the facility allowing anonymity it ran the risk of misuse by third parties and the risk that recipients would think that no such friend existed and the emails were merely spam sent by the website owner.
It was also critical of the fact that the email was sent to a business domain name when the content did not relate to a business service.
The ASA ruled that the email breached its code on database practice.
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