What to do if you are contacted by the ACMA

Why have I received this email from the ACMA? What to do if you’re contacted about spam!

The ACMA receives thousands of reports from the public every month about email and SMS messages that they think might be spam. One of the most important things we do with these reports is contact the companies we can identify, and tell them about their obligations under the Spam Act.

What is this, and why did I get it?

If you’ve received an email from the ACMA telling you that an email or SMS you’ve sent has been reported as spam, don’t panic. We understand that being contacted by a government agency can be a bit confronting, but we hope that the information we provide will help you to comply with the Spam Act, and also protect your reputation.

If a message you’ve sent to promote your business is reported to our SMS spam reporting facility, Spam SMS (0429 999 888); our email facility, the Spam Intelligence Database (report@submit.spam.acma.gov.au); or a formal complaint has been made at www.spam.acma.gov.au, then it’s likely that you will be contacted by us. It is really important to note that in contacting you, we are not accusing you of breaching the Spam Act. Rather, we are alerting you to any problems we might have noticed when we had a look at your message, as well as to the fact that one of your potential or existing customers reported your message to us because they thought it was spam.

The purpose of our email is to provide you with an overview of your responsibilities, and to direct you to information (including this blog!) that will help you to ensure that your e-marketing practices are not impacting on your business’s reputation.

Where a formal complaint has been made, the ACMA will also provide you with the complainant’s email address (for an email complaint) or mobile phone number (for an SMS complaint), and ask that you remove those details from your marketing lists. While we don’t want to come across as heavy-handed, it is really important that you action these requests, because it is not a good look for your business if you don’t comply with a request that one of your customers has made via the government regulator (us!).

But I got an email from you, and you wouldn’t tell me who reported me

Sometimes the ACMA doesn’t have permission to provide you with the details of the person who reported your message to either Spam SMS or the Spam Intelligence Database. We understand that this means it can be difficult (if not impossible) to unsubscribe the customer, which can be frustrating if it seems that the person is reporting the message because they think it is unsolicited. However, we do try to give you as many details as we can, such as the subject line of the message (or content for SMS), and the date that it was sent. We figure that you’d want to know if people receiving your messages are not happy about getting them. And, as we have mentioned in previous blogs (for example, ‘Unsubscribing—making sure that it works can work for you too’), taking note of the complaints you receive can help you avoid nasty problems in the future, such as unsubscribe facilities that are not working.

So what should I do if I receive an email from the ACMA?

While it can be a shock to find out that a message you’ve sent has been reported as spam, we encourage you to look at it as an opportunity. How can it be an opportunity? Well, would you rather your potential customers see you as a reputable industry leader that makes changes to ensure ongoing compliance, or as a business that is not concerned about its customers or its obligations?

You should carefully read the email sent to you by the ACMA, because we tailor it to highlight the issues we identified when we had a look at your message. That is, if we think that your sender identification may fall short (which is a requirement of section 17 of the Spam Act, and the topic of a previous blog), we tell you. We also let you know if we can’t find an unsubscribe facility (which is a requirement of section 18 of the Spam Act). If we don’t have any concerns about your message in relation to these two requirements, then we won’t mention them. However, you might want to use this as an opportunity to make sure that you are happy with the way these things are presented in your e-marketing campaigns.

When reading the ACMA’s email, consider each of the issues it raises, and look at how your business deals with them. Your business will most likely benefit from doing the following:

• Taking the opportunity to review your e-marketing practices.
• Looking at how you obtain permission (consent) to send e-marketing messages, as well as the records you keep in relation to this.
• Checking that your messages contain sufficient information for a recipient to identify and contact you.
• Testing your unsubscribe facility, and keeping a record of the results.
• Removing an email address or phone number from your marketing list within five days if you’ve been asked to do so.

Reviewing your systems and processes may help you to identify a potential problem early on, before it has the chance to become a larger issue. And if you do review your systems and find that they are all working fine—which, of course, is good for your business’ reputation—you’ll give yourself peace of mind.

We’re actually trying to help

One of the key reasons the ACMA contacts businesses in response to the reports it receives is that we see early intervention, through awareness and education, as a real opportunity to help businesses meet their Spam Act requirements and improve their e-marketing practices before there is any need to progress to formal options.

We appreciate that taking the time to review your practices may take you away from your day-to-day business, but spending a little time now can help to make sure that your business maintains a good reputation with its potential customers in the e-marketing space.

We’re here if you need us

If you’ve read our email, and are still not exactly sure of what it means, don’t hesitate to contact us. We’re more than happy to provide general advice about the requirements of the Spam Act, and to help you gain a greater understanding of which areas of your e-marketing processes appear to need attention.