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The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has fined American Express Services Europe Limited (Amex) £90,000 for sending more than four million marketing emails to customers who did not want to receive them. The ICO began investigating when it received complaints from Amex customers who were getting marketing emails despite having opted out from them. The emails included details on the rewards of shopping online with Amex; getting the most out of using the card and encouraging customers to download the Amex app. Amex had rejected its customers’ complaints saying the emails were servicing emails and not marketing. During the investigation the ICO found that Amex had sent over 50 million, of what it classed as, servicing emails to its customers. The ICO revealed that for nearly 12 months, between 1 June 2018 and 21 May 2019, 4,098,841 of those emails were marketing emails, designed to encourage customers to make purchases on their cards which would benefit Amex financially. It was a deliberate action for financial gain by the organisation. Amex also did not review its marketing model following customer complaints.
Source: ICO
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However it makes the point that there's a big difference between marketing and servicing, and Amex crossed that line.
These were referred to as "nuisance" emails because they were, and apparently they were sent to over 50 million people some of whom may have reacted to the financial benefit of Amex.
Di