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Landmark penalties imposed against SMS spammer
Posted: 10/11/2009
In the September 2009 issue of RLR Telecoms: Smart Call, RLR informed readers of the case of Australian Communications and Media Authority v Mobilegate Ltd & Ors (“Mobilegate”).
In December 2008, the Australian Communications and Media Authority (“ACMA”) commenced the Mobilegate proceedings in the Federal Court against eight respondents alleging contraventions of the Spam Act 2003 (Cth) (“Spam Act”) and the Trade Practices Act 1974 (Cth) (“Trade Practices Act”).
The ACMA alleged that the respondents created and used fake member profiles on an on-line dating service, were engaged in a scheme to obtain the mobile numbers of members of that dating service and sent unsolicited SMS messages to those members’ mobile numbers, offering a SMS chat service called 'Safe Divert' or 'Maybemeet'. The recipients were charged as much as $5.00 per SMS.
On 23 October 2009, the Federal Court handed down penalties against the five respondents found to have breached the Spam Act and the Trade Practices Act.
The Federal Court imposed landmark penalties totalling some $15.75 million against the five respondents.
A further hearing is scheduled to commence on 30 November 2009 in relation to the allegations against the remaining three respondents.
RLR will keep readers advised of further developments.
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