Viagogo loses in Court (again) over privacy of its sellers

Written on Fri 23 Nov 2012

The Supreme Court has ruled that Viagogo will have to disclose the names of people who sold tickets to England rugby matches via its website to the Rugby Football Union. Outing their names and identities might be a major blow against the culture of ticket touting.

In the run-up to the autumn international rugby matches in 2010 and the home matches for the six-nations tournament in 2011, the RFU monitored various websites, including Viagogo and it conducted a series of test purchases. It discovered that Viagogo had been used to advertise thousands of tickets for the seven games that were to be played at Twickenham. Tickets with a face value of £20 to £55 were being advertised for sale at up to some £1,300. On making these discoveries, the RFU’s legal advisers wrote to Viagogo seeking information about the identity of those involved in the sale and purchase of the tickets. This was resisted. The RFU therefore took legal action.

The RFU won in Court but Viagogo appealed the decision. The case went to the Court of Appeal (where they were thrashed)  and now has come to the Supreme Court (where once again they were defeated).You can read the verdict at in legalspeak.

Or you may prefer to read Viagogo’s own Privacy Policy, which currently states that

You should be aware that ..... viagogo may disclose your financial or personal information if required to do so by law, court order, as requested by other government or law enforcement authority, or in the good faith belief that disclosure is otherwise necessary or advisable….

We hope that the Inland Revenue has read this Privacy Policy and that the touts who use Viagogo are filling in their tax returns properly.