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Announcements
Date of announcement
6 January 2004 - New Spam Laws
With new Spam
laws to be introduced into Australia from April 11, 2004, GlobalCenter
wishes to give their clients an overview of their rights:-
- This legislation
covers more than just emails.
- In short,
to be considered spam, the message must have been sent without
the recipient's consent.
- The Spam
Act 2003 prohibits sending, or causing to be sent, unsolicited
commercial electronic messages that have an Australian link. It
is prohibited to send commercial electronic messages to a non-existent
address that would have an Australian link if the address existed.
It is prohibited to aid, abet or otherwise be party to a contravention
of the legislation.
- The legislation
is intended to prohibit:
· spam originating in Australia being sent to any destination;
· spam originating overseas being sent to an address accessed
in Australia.
- Limited
exceptions to the Spam Act apply in respect of currently accepted
government, business and commercial practices, such as:
· Messages from government bodies;
· Messages from registered political parties;
· Messages from charities;
· Messages from religious organisations;
· Messages from educational institutions directed to attending
and former students and their households;
· where the message relates to goods or services, and the
body authorising the message is the supplier of the goods or services.
In addition, purely factual messages are excluded from coverage
of the legislation. The sender must still include accurate information
about the message's originator.
- The Spam
Act 2003 requires that all commercial electronic messaging
contain a functional "unsubscribe" facility to allow
people to opt out from receiving messages from that source in
the future. The unsubscribe facility must be reasonably likely
to be able to receive and act on unsubscribe messages for a period
of 30 days after the sending of the message. A request to opt
out must be honoured within five working days to avoid future
breaches of the legislation. Acceptable examples of the unsubscribe
facility will be specified by regulation and may vary between
technologies.
We recommend that
all clients review their email strategies to ensure full compliance
prior to the implementation date of the Spam Act 2003.
We remind
clients that we do not endorse the sending of unsolicited bulk email
and refer to our Acceptable Use Policy which is contained within our
Master Service Agreement for your reference.
This is announcement
is provided simply as a service and is not intended to replace Professional
Advice we encourage all clients to engage to ensure full compliance
to this Act.
Further information
pertaining to this legislation can be obtained from: http://www.gnl.com.au/SpamAct
02003.pdf
Tony Wells
General Manager IDC
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