Coca-Cola SMS spam costs VHA $110,000 - UPDATED

Stuart Corner
Tuesday, 10 November 2009 07:46

IT Policy - Government Tech Policy

Some of Australia's biggest brand names - Vodafone Hutchison and Coca Cola - have fallen foul of the Spam Act over their involvement in a Coca Cola SMS marketing campaign, with VHA paying the ACMA $110,000 and Coca Cola receiving a formal warning.

On 2 October 2008, 50,000 SMS messages Coca Cola promotional messages were sent. They read: "Take a hint from your PC and reboot. You'll work faster. Reclaim your lunch hour with a friend. Escape with a Coca-Cola lunch break." On 9 October 2008, a further 50,000 SMS were sent containing the same text.

The ACMA's view was that the messages did not contain information about how a recipient could ensure they did not receive further messages, or contain information about how to contact Coca Cola South Pacific, the authorising organisation. It alleges that the campaigns breached the Spam Act 2003.

The ACMA says it has accepted enforceable undertakings from three companies - Vodafone Hutchison Australia (VHA), media agency New Dialogue and content aggregator Big Mobile - and has issued a formal warning to Coca-Cola South Pacific.
 
The ACMA says the undertaking from VHA, which includes a financial component of $110,000, was offered in response to three ACMA investigations into alleged breaches of the Spam Act, including the Coca-Cola marketing campaign).

The manager of the ACMA's anti-spam team, Julia Cornwell McKean, told iTWire that the mobile numbers for the campaigns had been provided by Vodafone from the list of subscribers to Vodafone Live and that Vodafone had facilitated the sending of the messages. She said that Vodafone had been responsible for one of the other two, unrelated, campaigns, and Hutchison the second, all having taken place prior to the merger.

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