Care needed after anti-spam bill becomes law

New Zealand has now formally adopted its own anti spam legislation, with the Unsolicited Electronic Message Bill coming into effect on September 5 – a good thing as spam typically represents more than 80% of email traffic.

However this new law has a far-ranging impact on every New Zealand business because the penalties for breaching it are stringent: fines of up to $200,000 for individuals, and/or $500,000 for organisations. Here is a high level low-down on the Bill:

How will it impact your business?

Any electronic messages (everyday emails, bulk emails and txt campaigns) whose purpose is the marketing or promoting of goods or services and which has a New Zealand link is impacted.

Messages can not be sent unless the recipient’s consent has been expressed either:

Explicitly - the recipient has formally “opted-in”. An “untick if you do not want to receive promotional emails” line isn’t enough); or

Can be inferred – the recipient’s email/txt address has being publicly published in a business capacity but only if publication isn’t accompanied by a statement stipulating that no consent to receiving such messages has been given; or

Inferred because the message sent is relevant to the business, role, functions or duties of that person. For instance, a business sending an email to an IT manager about computers after obtaining his/her details from a business card given at an exhibition; or

The electronic message is about requested quotes, estimates, or is a message facilitating, completing or confirming an already agreed commercial transaction; or

A message that provides information about goods or services offered by a government body. Any such message must include accurate information about the person who authorised the sending of such message for at least 30 days post sending that message;Messages must contain a free (including TXT messages) and functional unsubscribe facility.

Any address-harvesting software is prohibited, and so is any electronic address list produced using such software, or acquired for use or used in connection with sending unsolicited promotional emails.
The only get-out is when the sender can demonstrate that a message was sent in error, or without knowledge – for instance as a result of a computer virus.


What can you do about it?

Clean your existing email database by sending an email out prior to 5 September that requests each recipient to formally opt-in (the recipient “opts-in” on your website and automatically receives an email requesting ” opt-in” confirmation, and preferably double opt in conformation because this will keep an audit trail).

You should also:

• Ensure future new subscribers are added through the same mechanism;
  
• Keep an audit track of that process as well as any change in your recipients’ subscription;
  
• Ensure that every email campaign you send has an “opt-in / opt-out” landing web page from which recipients can subscribe / unsubscribe;
  
• Ensure that you have a clear process on who is authorised to send what to whom and how within your company;
  
• Train your staff about the new compliance requirements and their effect on them and your business;
• Leverage every legitimate daily email correspondence because most of them are not captured under this Bill;
  
• Use a mixture of direct marketing (for all those of your recipients that have opted-out) and email marketing for those that have opted-in.
  
• Use a commercial email marketing solution that will help you comply by providing out-of-the-box database management, subscription/unsubscription automation, auditing and reporting.
  

We can help you with the above, as well as improving your daily communications’ impact. So why not call our New Zealand Sales Manager Tom Reidy on 0800 mailprimer– or visit our website http://www.calcium.co.nz/

For full details on the Legislation please refer to the following link: Unsolicited Electronic Messages (SPAM) Bill 2006

Legal Liability

As these views are of our own interpretation of the Electronic messaging bill, please take into account that we are not legal experts, but experts in email marketing, so for further legal advice please consult your lawyer.