In a surprising development, the Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) has been slapped with a $3.55 million fine for breaching Spam Act regulations by sending over 65 million marketing emails that customers found difficult or impossible to unsubscribe from.
The Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) issued the largest-ever penalty for a Spam Act violation, corresponding to 0.0367% of CBA’s 2021-22 profit of $9.673 billion.
CBA sent the emails over a year from November 2021 to November 2022, with 61 million emails requiring customers to log in to unsubscribe, 4 million having no functional unsubscribe link, and 5000 being sent to customers who had already unsubscribed.
This massive breach by the CBA is worrying, especially as the ACMA had previously flagged issues with the bank’s e-marketing practices. Despite warnings, CBA’s attempts to resolve the problem failed, indicating disrespect for spam rules and their customers’ rights.
CBA has agreed to an independent review of its e-marketing processes and staff training on spam laws, in addition to giving periodic compliance updates to regulators. The ACMA will closely monitor CBA’s compliance and hold it accountable to fix any future violations.
In the last 18 months, companies have paid $11M in penalties for spam and telemarketing violations, including Binance’s $2 million fine, Sportsbet’s $2.5 million fine, and Latitude Finance Australia’s $1.5 million fine in 2022. Ensuring SMS and email unsubscribe rules is a key Compliance Priority for ACMA in 2022-23.
ACMA’s research reveals that after requesting to be removed from company mailing lists, six out of ten Australians still receive marketing emails.
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- Lucy Walker covers finance, health and beauty since 2014. She has been writing for various online publications.
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