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Fines Imposed for SMS Spam

By IBLS Editor

A telecommunications provider (the company) has been fined $110,000 after allegedly sending 20,000 SMS messages without sufficient sender identification. The fine was imposed by the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) for breach of the Spam Act 2003 (Cth) (Act).

The Act applies to commercial electronic messages including email, SMS, MMS and instant messaging. The Act requires commercial electronic messages to include 'accurate sender information'. In this case, the company did not identify itself or its product by name, arguing that recipients would be able to make the connection between the three-digit sender ID and the three-letter product name. ACMA did not accept this argument. While SMS marketers struggle to fit all of their messages within the small per-message character limits, ACMA here demonstrated that there are limits to its tolerance for abbreviated approaches to compliance.

ACMA was also unable to reach agreement with the company on the terms of an enforceable undertaking. In issuing the fine, ACMA stated that ?ACMA will use its stronger enforcement powers where the undertakings offered are not considered an adequate response to the compliance issues raised."

In related news, ACMA has also announced that 55% of Do Not Call Register complaints it has received are in the telecommunications sphere, resulting from unwanted calls promoting phone plans and associated services.

This article was written by Kaman Tsoi, Senior Associate, Melbourne.

 

Full post as published by IBLS Internet Law Blog on January 19, 2009 (boomark / email).