Nokia nabbed for spamming users of its handsets

Stuart Corner
Tuesday, 24 January 2012 07:30

IT Policy - Regulation

Nokia has fallen foul of Australia's anti-spam laws for 'helpful' SMS messages it sends to owners of Nokia mobiles.

The ACMA says it went after Nokia following complaints from customers that they could not work out how to unsubscribe from the 'tips' sent by Nokia. In particular, the messages did not include details of how Nokia could be contacted, as required by the Spam Act 2003.

Furthermore, the ACMA says its investigation found that some of the 'tips' went beyond providing factual information and amounted to promotion of Nokia's products and services, including mobile phone accessories, and the messages therefore needed to include an unsubscribe facility.

Nokia has paid a penalty of $55,000 to the ACMA and given enforceable undertakings that commit it to:

- appointing an independent consultant to audit its systems and processes;

- developing a plan to carry out the independent consultant's recommendations;

- training its employees engaged in SMS marketing about complying with the requirements of the Spam Act.

Nokia is not the only company that appears to be ignorant of the requirements of the Spam Act. The ACMA says that in FY2011 there was a 370 percent increase on the previous financial year in reports from the public about SMS messages believed to be spam.