Virgin Mobile fined for spam

E-mail to customers promotes 'opting in'.

Virgin Mobile has agreed to establish new training programs, quality assurance processes and an auditing regime following an ACMA investigation into e-mails it had sent customers.

The investigation revealed that Virgin Mobile customers who had 'opted out' of receiving marketing messages from the company still received e-mails promoting the benefits of 'opting in'.

"When you joined us you asked not to receive any promotional material," Virgin Mobile e-mailed its customers in July 2009. "We totally respect that decision and you can remain promo-free as long as you like.

"To make sure you're still certain about this choice, we just wanted to quickly show you some examples of recent offers that we've sent to customers..."

ACMA found the messages to be commercial electronic messages which were sent without consent and without an unsubscribe facility.

This contravened the Spam Act, which ruled that commercial electronic messages could not be sent without the recipient's consent.

Virgin Mobile has agreed to pay $22,000 in addition to developing its training, quality assurance processes and auditing processes.

"Virgin Mobile has voluntarily entered into an enforceable undertaking ... in relation to a one-off email communication to a small selected group of Virgin Mobile customers in July 2009," a company spokesperson told iTnews.

"Virgin Mobile has worked very closely with the ACMA on this undertaking. A number of enhancements have been made to our training, quality assurance and auditing procedures to prevent this issue from occurring again."

"We apologise to any of our Members who may have been inconvenienced by this communication," she said.