Bulk Emailing clients without breaching the Spam Act

Owned by Eugene
05, Mar, 2020
1 min read

Raised at Advisory Meeting - Tuesday, 25th February 2020

Problem: Jim’s National Office has been receiving an increased number of formal complaints via the ACMA by clients receiving unsolicited emails.

If these are from the National Office, we unsubscribe them.

If these are from our client newsletter recipients, there is an unsubscribe option the client can click on or we unsubscribe them as requested. Our client newsletters are sent via a 3rd party marketing company.

The problem lies when an FSO or FSE bulk emails a client list that includes someone who has previously unsubscribed from our marketing material and/or the material has no way to unsubscribe. The FSO/FSE does not have access to our managed Jim’s Group unsubscribe list, nor can we provide access due to the Privacy Act.

The item was raised at the Feb 2020 Advisory Meeting.

FYI - In Dec 2019, Optus was fined over $500,000 for breaching the spam act.

Solution: Bulk Emailing only to be done through Jim’s system, which will strictly observe opt-out options by clients.

Clarification: Either they use our marketing company directly or we do it and put it through our marketing company.  It's because the marketing company recognizes clients who have opted out.  - Jim

 

Ref: Spam Act 2003 - https://www.legislation.gov.au/Series/C2004A01214