Source : Perth Now news
Australian telco SpinTel has been fined more than $653,000 for sending 32,000 spam emails to former customers.
An investigation by the communications watchdog found customers who had left SpinTel up to 13 years prior were being hit with marketing emails.
The probe found SpinTel kept sending emails more than five days after people had unsubscribed, and the telco has accepted a court order for an independent consultant to look over its compliance with spam laws.
The Australian Communications and Media Authority said SpinTel tried to argue that because the previous customers at one stage used SpinTel, the telco was entitled to keep contacting them.
ACMA member Samantha Yorke said a previous business relationship did not automatically provide consent to contact past customers.
“In this case, the consumers had left SpinTel and it was clear the relationship had ended,” Ms Yorke said.
“Some people who received the messages had not been SpinTel customers for well over a decade.
“Whether consent can be inferred depends on the circumstances, including the nature of the business relationship, the relevance of the messages to the relationship and the recipient’s reasonable expectations.”
ACMA says businesses should make clear how long they have a consumer’s consent to be contacted.
ACMA found SpinTel sent more than 32,000 spamming emails between July and September last year, trying to entice people back onto mobile and NBN plans.
On top of the $653,400 fine, SpinTel has accepted a three-year court enforceable undertaking, ACMA says, for an independent consultant to review compliance with spam laws, run audits and report back to ACMA.
SpinTel has been contacted for comment.
The fine follows SpinTel paying a $59,400 penalty in May after scammers had broken through the company’s one-time verification and multi-factor identification systems.
The hacks cost customers $45,000, after the criminals were able to pull 10 phone numbers out of SpinTel’s systems in February and March last year.
This security shortcoming also attracted an 18-month court enforceable undertaking, for an independent security review.
SpinTel is privately owned – not a subsidiary of Telstra, Optus or TPG – and was founded in Sydney in the mid-1990s.
The competition and consumer watchdog’s latest report shows SpinTel attracted the third-least complaints last year out of the ten telco providers (which lumps subsidiaries of the three major providers under their owners’ single umbrella).
