Kmart kept sending emails to people who had unsubscribed. Photo: AAP
Major Australian brands have been accused of disrespecting consumers with a deluge of spam, after recent fines showed that even opting out of commercial messages doesn’t always work.
Department store giant Kmart became the latest firm to run afoul of spam laws on Thursday after it was caught sending more than 200,000 messages to people who had unsubscribed.s
Astonishingly, the Australian Communications and Media Authority said it warned the retailer repeatedly about the problem before levying a $1.3 million fine for breaches in 2022 and 2023.
ACMA chair Nerida O’Loughlin said there was no excuse for the wrongdoing, which also follows similar fines against the likes of Uber, DoorDash and Ticketek in recent months.
“When a customer decides to opt out of a marketing mailing list, businesses are obliged to fulfil that request. The rules have been in place for nearly 20 years and there is simply no excuse,” she said.
“Kmart’s case is particularly concerning as it went on for such a significant period.”
Australian Communications Consumer Action Network (ACCAN) chief executive Andrew Williams said it was “really concerning” that so many big brands are continuing to send messages to people who unsubscribe from their mailing lists, despite “clear legal obligations” protecting consumers.
“It’s very disrespectful to consumers who have made the effort to unsubscribe or have their name removed from a mailing list,” Williams said.
“The Spam Act is there for a reason, and that’s to protect consumers from this vey behaviour.”
The growing popularity of online shopping and the digital economy has unleashed a wave of consumer data into the hands of retailers like Kmart in recent years, swelling their mailing lists for the promotion of new products and sales.
It has been a commercial windfall for companies, which can send out hundreds of thousands of promotional messages directly to consumers at a lower cost than traditional advertising.
But consumers aren’t always aware that they’re often signing onto corporate mailing lists when they purchase goods online or sign up for a service, Williams said.
“We don’t read those T&Cs,” he said.
“That’s where we’re giving our permission for our data to be collected.”
Opt-out obligations are supposed to be the recourse for consumers who want to remove themselves from the torrent of corporate communications, but O’Loughlin said too many companies aren’t playing by the rules.
She said people are frustrated and angry with big brands that intrude on their privacy by not respecting their wishes to unsubscribe.
“Any business that conducts e-marketing should be actively and regularly reviewing its processes to ensure it is complying with the rules,” O’Loughlin said.
There is a risk, however, that companies like Kmart, Uber and Ticketek merely see the fines as a cost of doing business.
In Kmart’s case its $1.3 million penalty is just 0.01 per cent of Kmart Group (including Target)’s revenue for 2023, which is closer to a rounding error than a penalty that will deter the firm.
But Williams said the reputational damage from the fine, alongside an enforceable undertaking that will empower the regulator to ensure Kmart doesn’t repeat its wrongdoing, are key factors.
“Large organisations should have systems and processes in place to comply with the Spam Act,” he said.
“What we have here is a system error, but with a large organisation like Kmart, excuses like that don’t cut it.”