Virgin Blue fined $110,000 by ACMA for breaching Spam Act

The Australian Communications and Media Authority has hit airline Virgin Blue with a $110,000 fine for allegedly breaking the Spam Act, following a number of customer complaints stating they were receiving emails after unsubscribing.

ACMA said in a statement yesterday Virgin Blue has accepted an enforceable undertaking following the investigation, through which it will pay a fine, provide training to relevant employees, establish a complaints handling policy and audit 10% of its email marketing campaigns every month for a year.

Virgin was contacted for comment by SmartCompany this morning, but was unavailable before publication.

ACMA’s anti-spam team manager Julia Cornwall McKean says Virgin Blue did not act quickly enough to remove recipients from lists.

“Virgin Blue had technical issues which means they sent emails to people who had actually unsubscribed. Our concern was that Virgin wasn’t reactive enough, and they should have been more aware of the technical issue.”

The Spam Act mandates that any company sending marketing emails, text messages or operating an email list needs to provide methods for recipients to opt out immediately, with these instructions to be printed on every email or text. Consumers must be removed from lists within five working days.

Virgin Blue admitted to ACMA that it had experienced issues with its own marketing systems, which prompted the repeated emails. As a result, the enforceable undertaking mandates that Virgin Blue will commit to a “thorough overall and independent assessment of its marketing practices”, according to ACMA.

The company has also paid a $110,000 fine, a figure typical for these cases, and will use an independent third party to conduct a review and then implement any changes into its email marketing program.
The undertaking, as set out by ACMA, states that Virgin will develop and submit a training program for approval and that it will complete this program on an annual basis for employees.

Cornwall McKean says while the investigation covered several months, this specific incident occurred in May-June 2010. And while Virgin stopped sending messages as soon as they knew technical issues had occurred, she points out that “the company should have reasonably known something was happening”.

“One of the most common complaints we receive is that people have unsubscribed, but they keep receiving emails. Companies need to audit their unsubscribe lists to make sure people are being taken off, and they should do that every time they send an email out.”

ACMA chairman Chris Chapman has also said that businesses need to keep on top of their emailing lists and ensure they are complying with the Spam Act at all times.

“Businesses which market by email need to regularly test that the unsubscribe function in their messages is working properly,” he said.

“The Spam Act requires that a request from a consumer to be unsubscribed from commercial emails must be addressed. No further commercial electronic messages are allowed to be sent to the consumer five working days after an unsubscribe request is made.”