Vodafone Hutchison Australia was slapped a $110,000 penalty by the Australian Communications and Media Authority after investigation of alleged breaches of the Spam Act, a media release from the government regulator reported.

The alleged breach arose from a marketing campaign where VHA together with two other companies, media agency New Dialogue and content aggregator Big Mobile, promoted certain Coca-Cola products through SMS.

In the ACMA media release, ACMA Chairman Chris Chapman said: ‘The ACMA considers that well resourced companies should be compliance leaders. There is no excuse for them to fall short in their obligations under the Spam Act for SMS marketing campaigns.’

In addition to the financial penalty, VHA also offered to undertake the apppointment of an auditor to monitor and report Spam Act compliance. It has also undertaken to provide Spam Act training for its employees.

The ACMA also accepted enforceable undertakings from New Dialogue and Big Mobile in relation to the coca-Cola marketing campaign.

New Dialogue has paid $22,000 in accordance with its enforceable undertaking. Big Mobile has undertaken to pay compensation to each recipient of any SMS message that breaches the Spam Act during the term of the enforceable undertaking of 12 months.

Following the ACMA’s findings, a formal warning has also been issued to Coca-Cola South Pacific for causing commercial electronic messages to be sent without an unsubscribe facility and not providing contact information, as required under the Spam Act.

Source: SPAMWATCHERS

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