Australia Spam Regulation

Australia is one of the most active countries in the world that pushed for the creation of legislation that intends to combat spam.

Spam is the common term for electronic 'junk mail' - unwanted commercial electronic messages.

The Australia Spam Act 2003 prohibits the sending of spam, which is identified as a commercial electronic message sent without the consent of the addressee via email, short message service (SMS), multimedia message service (MMS) or instant messaging. The requirements under the Spam Act apply to all commercial electronic messages, including both bulk and individual messages.

To implement it, a reporting system was created that users can use to report complaints and an eMarketers code of practice. Any nationality who received a spam from Australia or sent spam to Australia may be covered by the law.

They had a review last year of the law that gathered inputs from multiple stakeholders.

The law has helped Australia to improve its status from 10th to 32nd source of spam worldwide. One of the biggest prosecution to date resulted to a fine of 5.5 million Australian dollars.

The government is also budgeting an initiative, worth more than 100 million Australian dollars, that intends to give Australian households filters to combat spam.