Online Marketing: New Zealand Anti-Spam Legislation | Unsolicited Electronic Messages Act | Consent | Permission-Based Email Marketing
Unsolicited Electronic Messages Act 2007
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What is the Anti-Spam Legislation in New Zealand?
New Zealand passed an anti-spam law in the form of the Unsolicited Electronic Messages Act in 2007, to ensure that all New Zealand e-marketers reviewed their email marketing practices to avoid sending email spam. Significant penalties now exist for sending spam with a New Zealand, so the Act isn't something that email marketers and other marketers can afford ignore.
Overview of the Unsolicited Electronic Messages Act 2007
The purposes of the Act are to:
- Prohibit unsolicited commercial electronic messages (spam) with a New Zealand link (i.e. messages sent to, from or within New Zealand).
- Require commercial electronic messages to include accurate information about the person who authorised the sending of the message and a functional unsubscribe facility to enable the recipient to instruct the sender that no further messages are to be sent to the recipient.
- Prohibit address-harvesting software being used to create address lists for sending unsolicited commercial electronic messages.
- Deter people from using information and communication technologies inappropriately.
- Requiring electronic messages to contain a functioning unsubscribe facility.
- Ensuring electronic messages are sent only to customers who have consented to receiving it.
- Restricting the use of address-harvesting software.
- The Act covers email, instant messaging, SMS and MMS (text and image-based mobile phone messaging) of a commercial nature. It does not cover faxes, Internet pop-ups or voice telemarketing.
What The Unsolicited Electronic Messages Act Applies To
The Act primarily applies to New Zealand connected (e.g., sender or receiver in NZ) email (not letters, voicemail or faxes), which markets goods, services, land, business or investment opportunities. The main change is that before you send anyone a commercial email, you need his or her consent.
Consent
You can have express consent (i.e. where someone has agreed that you can send them the email) or inferred consent. So, we hear you ask, what does inferred consent mean? We can divide 'inferred consent' into two categories — existing contacts and new contacts.
Existing Contacts
You can send a commercial email to your existing contacts without express consent if you have a business or other relationship, which indicates that they would expect to receive that email from you.
New Contacts
You can send a commercial email to new contacts without express consent if:- Their business email address has been conspicuously published.
- They have not stated that they do not want to receive unsolicited messages at that address.
- The message you are sending is relevant to the business, role, functions, or duties of the recipient, in their business or official capacity.
- For example, I could send an email to the directors of a company, having obtained those addresses from the company website, notifying them of an issue which relates to their duties. However, I could not send that email to someone for whom the information is not relevant to his or her role.
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