What is Spam? Put simply, Spam is unsolicited commercial e-mail. Just as you get junk mail in your post box, the Internet version is junk mail in your inbox.
Spam used to be a cheap and effective way to draw potential customer’s attention to your products or services. But that Special Offer you were planning to email to the company down the road could cost you $220,000! In fact, fines for sending unsolicited commercial e-mails can be as high as $1.1 million for ongoing offences.
On 10 April 2004 new Australian Anti-Spam legislation took effect, placing strict laws on the sending of commercial e-mail:
• Commercial e-mail cannot be sent without the recipient’s express consent or inferred consent based on a business or other relationship with the person and their conduct.
• Accurate information about who the sender is.
• A functional way for the recipient to unsubscribe. This does not need to be an automatic system - it could simply be a message along the lines of "If you do not wish to receive emails from us in the future, please reply to this email and advise us".
It is important that businesses are aware of the requirements under the Anti-Spam legislation. |
