Electoral register online makes opt in to open register default – they are trying to make money out of spammers

I have just finished filling in my  details for the electoral register online.  I don’t know why I have had to do this. Kid3 has also had to but Wife1 and Kid2 have not. Wossthatallabout? The bumpf they sent says “For all sorts of reasons, some people will not match against existing records (!?) and therefore cannot automatically be transferred automatically to the new register. For example, they may have moved home since the record was last updated, or there may have been a difference in the spelling of the two records“.

Well I haven’t moved home for 17 years – since Kid3 was born and it isn’t as if Huw Trefor Davies is an uncommon name, innit?!

It didn’t take me long to fill out the electoral register online stuff but it would appear that you do have to take care when it comes to the government. They set as default that you want to join the open register. In leaving the box unticked you are giving them permission to sell your details to anyone who wants to spam you.

This is not setting a good example. No wonder the Telephone Preference Service  doesn’t work when you have your own government making it easy for people to get hold of our details and to say that you opted in. I didn’t give them my phone number or email address as contact info. If they want to send me something they can do it by mail. I don’t trust them to not give these data to the spammers as well.

Loads of spam related stuff on this site – follow the spam category here. Also check out this post on Tesco spam more expensive than ham. I like the meat variety of spam.