Advisory Note: The SPAM Act 2003
Introduction
The SPAM Act 2003:
- Regulates the sending of a commercial electronic message.
- Infers that a commercial electronic message is an electronic message that promotes a good or service including educational services.
- Prohibits the use of address harvesting software and harvested address lists.
- Applies to all electronic messages, even a single electronic message , including e-mail, mobile text messages, instant messages and other electronic messages but excludes voice to voice telemarketing.
- Prevents the University from sending one or more messages containing information promoting goods and services provided by the University or its affiliates to anyone who is not or has not been an enrolled student of the University and who has not expressly given approval to receive messages of this nature from the University.
- Requires the University, even if a person has previously given approval for the University to send to them messages containing information that promotes good and/or services provided by the University or its affiliates on every occasion to provide the recipient with an opportunity to register their desire to be removed from the list; and action that request as soon as possible after receipt of the request to remove them from the list.
- Requires any message that contains information promoting goods and services provided by the University or its affiliates to contain information about the individual or organisation that authorised the message.
- Bans the harvesting of (and the use of harvested) electronic addresses and effectively bans the University from using of any list of electronic addresses where there is any possibility thatthat those listed have not provided their express consent to receive messages containing information promoting goods and services provided by the University
What you need to do if you wish to send a commercial e-mail message
- If you wish to send out a message that does promotes goods and services then you should send it to the Division of Marketing and Communications. They will approve the message, append official university information and attach the necessary "opt out" clauses.
What you cannot do:
- You cannot issue an electronic message that promotes goods or services, including information about courses to anyone other than a current or former student except through the Executive Director, Marketing and Communications.
- You should not assemble a list of e-mail addresses that you have acquired from a listserv (for example) and then either make that list available outside the university or use that list to ask the Division of Marketing and Communications to send an unsolicited e-mail that contains information promoting goods and services. In other words the person to whom an e-mail is sent containing information that promotes goods or services, must have expressly indicated their agreement to receive the e-mail.
- You cannot use address harvesting software
Garry Taylor
Executive Director, IT
May 2004