HIGHLY DODGY, IF NOT ILLEGAL

A couple of well-dressed young men came to our office yesterday. I wasn't available so I only found out after they had left, but they had come to 'offer' a mailing list of subscribers to other leading Thai magazines.
Basically they had heard about our new magazine, and were offering to sell us the names and addresses of people who already subscribe to other international magazines in Thailand. I'm not sure exactly which magazines, but at a guess I would say the likes of National Geographic Thailand and the Thai edition of Readers Digest.
If I had been involved I would have wanted to know more about the details they had, where they had come from and how much they were selling for. I would have said that we'd think about their offer, getting contact details in the process, and then make immediate contact with those publications mentioned and telling them their confidential membership data is being sold.
Anyone from my company doing this kind of thing with our data will be fired instantly, and we'd probably also look to seek damages. In many ways I am not surprised because this is Thailand and this kind of thing happens more than anyone realises, but that doesn't mean it's right or that we can't do our bit to stop it.