Australian Spam Act 2003 - Part 3 - Identification & Unsubscription
This, the third and final piece on our overview of Australian Spam Law walks through the important but clear topics of Identification and Subscription. Be prepared to be wiser.
Identification
Doesn’t mean clicking ‘enhance’ on your super pixilated Google image. And unlike the Biblical principle, it is, in this case, all about you.
Essentially it means that if you are the person sending a commercial electronic message you must provide clear and accurate information about yourself including details and contact information.
If you’re using a third party make sure you provide them with accurate contact information regarding your business.
Of course this is to be contextually appropriate - an SMS will have less contact information (perhaps a phone number rather than an address) than an e-mail. However it needs to be accessible and clear.
Information needs to be accurate for 30 days after the day you send the message. At which point you may fly to the Cayman Islands.
Easy.
Unsubscription
“You need to provide people with the choice to opt out” says ‘Spam Act 2003 – A practical guide for business’.
This ability needs to be a) clear and b) easy to use. Requests must be followed up promptly.
These can take the form of phone numbers, email addresses, online-forms, fax numbers and more. Just like identification this function must be available for 30 days after the transmission of your message.
The Spam Act states that a request to ‘withdraw consent’ will have been deemed to take place from 5 days after the request is sent (in the case of email) or received (in the case of post or other means). So make sure you follow requests up promptly!
The Practical Guide suggests a same-day unsubscription regime or an automated process with checking previous unsubscription against new imports. Both these features are supported in Brown Box’s MailBox if you are using it to send messages.
Other final information
The Australian Communications Authority (ACA) is the regulating body for activities to which the Spam Act relates. If you infringe the act and are reported they may issue a formal warning if your trespass has been inadvertent, would not be repeated and the warning is deemed sufficient to ‘change contravening behaviour’.
The legislation is designed to prohibit spam originating in Australia being sent anywhere, or originating overseas being sent to an Australian address. So if you live in Ukraine and are sending email to Iceland then you can disregard everything I’ve written.
We also recommending checking your ISP’s Acceptable Use Policy if you are using them as a relay for commercial electronic messages, as their terms and conditions may differ from those laid out in the SPAM Act.
Some links as provided by the Business Guide.
- Australian Direct Marketing Association (ADMA) ;
- Coalition against Unsolicited Bulk Email (CAUBE) ;
- Internet Industry Association (IIA);
- Internet Society of Australia (ISOC);
- Public Relations Institute of Australia (PRIA);
- Small Enterprise Telecommunications Centre (SETEL); and
- Presidian Legal Publications.
Conclusion
We’ll, if you’ve managed to persevere through these three short articles you’ll have yourself a great handle on what’s required to satisfy the Australian Spam Act and be well on your way to successful commercial electronic messaging.
The three main principles are Consent, Identify and Unsubscribe. If you keep these three in mind as you construct campaigns and manage lists you can sleep safe knowing you won’t find the ACA banging down your door.
Again this is all outlined in ‘SPAM ACT 2003: A Practical Guide for Business’ which is a handy download for reference purposes.
Thanks for joining me for this journey through SPAM law.
Feel free to email me if you have any questions, I’m happy to help.
Thanks for reading :)
~Rob
