• The ICO found that BT did not have customer consent to send the emails
• Fine will be reduced by 20% to £61,000 if paid by 20 July

BT has been slapped with a £77,000 fine after dishing out nearly 5million nuisance emails to its customers. Despite not having customers' consent to send direct marketing emails, BT fired out 4.9million emails between December 2015 and November 2016 promoting three charity initiatives. BT was promoting the following charity initiatives: the BT 'My Donate' platform, Giving Tuesday and Stand Up To Cancer. An investigation was launched after the Information Commissioner's Office received a complaint from a customer who claimed to have received an 'unsolicited direct marketing' email from BT, despite having previously opted out of receiving such emails. Steve Eckersley, head of the ICO, said: 'Organisations have a responsibility to ensure they are acting within the law. Where they do not, the ICO can and will take action.

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