A Pembrokeshire company has been fined £140,000 for sending out more than four million spam texts.

The fine was brought by the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) continuing its fight against companies that flout the rules.

The ICO found PRS Media, trading as Purus Digital, did not have the consent of the 4.4 million people it sent marketing texts to.

The company, based in Dale, said that the information used to send the text messages had been obtained from its own competition website.

People were required to sign up to marketing as a condition of entering competitions on the firm’s website.

This is not proper consent, the ICO said.

The website’s privacy policy told people their details would be shared with third parties but the law says that is not specific enough.

People must give consent to receive marketing text messages.

The law says that people must have a genuine choice over whether or not to consent to marketing.

Ken Macdonald, Head of ICO Regions, said: “Nuisance marketing, whether it’s by calls to people’s landline or mobile, or through spam texts, causes disruption, annoyance and, in the worst cases, serious upset.

“We issue fines like these to firms behind nuisance marketing to send a clear message that such action will not be tolerated.”

He added: “The ICO is looking forward to the commencement of our new powers, announced by the government last year, which will allow us to fine the directors of nuisance marketing firms as well as the companies themselves. This will enable us to take even more of a stand against the firms causing distress and intrusion to people’s lives.”

The ICO’s investigations into these firms were prompted by complaints from members of the public.

People can report nuisance calls, texts and emails at ico.org.uk/concerns.

Spam texts can also be reported by forwarding them to 7726.