There’s been a few big fines recently for breaches of the Spam Act, which serves as a warning to businesses to take care when sending marketing messages.
GraysOnline have been fined $160,000 for breaching the Spam Act. This is the largest fine that’s been issued since the Spam Act began a decade ago.
The Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) found that an email campaign by GraysOnline in relation to its new website GraysEscape was promotional, so its decision to send messages without an unsubscribe function to more than 700,000 people, including more than 300,000 people that had unsubscribed previously, was a clear breach of the Act.
And on the back of this, a Melbourne nightclub (Brown Alley, owned by Minardi) has been fined $15,500 by ACMA for sending out marketing SMSs without an opt-out function. But the fine was issued after the nightclub had already received 5 warnings from ACMA over the course of 3 years. According to ACMA most businesses just need to be reminded of their obligations, but this nightclub did not take the warnings seriously and was not taking any steps to rectify the problem.
The Spam Act requirement is pretty clear – if you are sending out marketing communication, you need to include in it the ability for the recipient to opt-out of getting any further marketing messages.
If you would like advice about what you should and shouldn’t say in your marketing materials, send us an email enquiry to [email protected] and we will organise a time to talk with you about your marketing to ensure that you aren’t opening yourself up to unnecessary risk.
