Telecom Italia (TIM)

What happened

Italy's Garante fined Telecom Italia €27.8 million for aggressive and unlawful telemarketing practices. The company made millions of unsolicited promotional calls, including to individuals on the national do-not-call registry. TIM also failed to obtain valid consent, processed data without proper legal basis, and did not honor opt-out requests from data subjects.

Articles violated

Lessons learned

Direct marketing requires explicit opt-in consent — do-not-call registries must be respected. Companies must maintain suppression lists and honor opt-out requests promptly. Consent must be granular — blanket consent for all marketing channels is insufficient. Repeated violations and systemic non-compliance lead to significantly higher fines.