Tiscali - BT feud over marketing letter escalates
Last week we broke the news of a BT letter to Tiscali customers, marketing themselves as a safe haven for Tiscali customers concerned about the ISP’s future.
After hinting to us last week that they were considering legal action, Tiscali have this afternoon provided confirmation in the form of the following statement:
In a letter to us, BT has disputed the claim. The next stage is for us to file a further court document and we will then learn the terms on which BT intends to defend the claim, if at all.
Tiscali UK spokeswoman
Whilst the Tiscali statement focuses on ‘defamation and malicious falsehood’ and not the privacy concerns raised on discussion forums in the past week, it is clear that they are taking the matter seriously.
BT responded in record time when we requested a comment:
Leslie King, BT
The BT statement still does not reveal where the data originated, and since the original article was written it has emerged that many non-Tiscali users also received the letter.
Whether this will escalate to a legal battle or remain as a PR tit-for-tat exercise remains to be seen. The Advertising Standards Authority has not yet publicly commented on the matter.
