Everybody hates spam, and while it seems there is no way to avoid the annoying messages they are currently being made illegal around the world.
American started the action with the CAN-SPAM laws, which Europe followed with the EU Directives. Australia was third with The Australian Spam Act being brought into action on the 10th of April 2004.
It is now illegal to send unsolicited messages (which account for around 40% of all internet traffic) to people and can attract fines of up to $1.5 million per day.
So how can you comply with the regulations?
- The email or other message must contain accurate sender information about the business that is sending the message.
- The message has to be sent with the recipient’s consent. They can give you advance consent, or they can have an existing business or other relationship with you.
- The reader must be able to unsubscribe from the messages, and the form for unsubscribing must be functional.
What does The Australian Spam Act cover?
- Emails
- SMS Messages
- MMS Messages
- Instant Messaging
What doesn’t The Australian Spam Act cover?
- Telemarketers calling you (even during dinner)
- Spam Fax’s!
- The recent prank message phenomenon (where they call your phone for half a second and it shows up as a missed call, when you call back it tries to charge you)
- Government bodies
- Registered political parties
- Charities
- Religious organizations
Where can you find out more?
The Australian Communications and Media Authority has a site full of information if your interested, and here are some of the places you can go for more information.
Spam Act 2003: A practical guide for business.
Office of the Federal Privacy Commissioner.
Australian Competition and Consumer Commission.
Scamwatch.
Internet Industry Association.
Coalition Against Unsolicited Bulk Email (CAUBE) Australia.
How to get your emails out of the junk mail folder.
Sometimes it happens, and you're friends will tell you that your email ends up in the junk mail folder. Some of us might ramble a bit much in our emails but hopefully it isn't that bad!
What should you look at to fix this?If the words are spammy words (eg you use the word free lots) that might trigger it, and if your mail server has been caught sending lots of spam before that will get you into the naughty corner too. You can see if your mail server is on any blacklists at this DNSStuff link.
It normally helps if the person has your email address in their address book.
Sites like hotmail, gmail, etc will also list you as spam if you send too many emails to their server too quickly. So if you have control over it try to slow down sending too many at once to the same host.