Woolworths is slapped with a record $1MILLION fine for spamming customers with endless marketing emails
- Woolworths fined $1,003,800 after sending emails to unsubscribed customers
- The supermarket giant breached Spam Act 2003 five million times over a year
- The fine is the biggest given by Australian Communications and Media Authority
Woolworths has been hit with a record $1million fine for bombarding customers with marketing emails even after they unsubscribed.
The supermarket giant spammed 1.2million customers with five million emails in the space of a year and was fined $1,003,800 by the Australian Communications and Media Authority.
The emails were sent between October 2018 and July 2019 and the million dollar penalty is the largest ever issued by the regulator.
ACMA Chair Nerida O'Loughlin said Woolworths' non-compliance with the Spam Act 2003 was 'inexcusable'.
Woolworths breached the Spam Act 2003 five million times in the space of a year and was fined $1,003,800 by the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA)
'Woolworths failed to act even after the ACMA had warned it of potential compliance issues after receiving consumer complaints,' she said.
'Australians have the right to unsubscribe from marketing emails that they do not want to receive.
'In this case, consumers claimed that they had tried to unsubscribe on multiple occasions or for highly personal reasons, but their requests were not actioned by Woolworths because of its systems, processes, and practices.
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'The ACMA's actions should serve as a reminder to others not to disregard customers' wishes when it comes to unsubscribing from marketing material.'
Within the last year, businesses have forked out $1,753,500 to the regulator for breaching spam and telemarketing laws.
In January, Optus was slapped with a $500,000 fine for two million breaches.
Woolworths was issued the penalty after customers complained they were still receiving spam emails after unsubscribing (file image)
WooliesX Managing Director, Amanda Bardwell, apologised for the breach which had been fixed last year.
Ms Bardwell said the issue arose after households were sharing the same email address but different Woolworths Reward accounts, meaning multiple marketing messages were being sent.
'We respect the right of our Rewards members to choose how and when we communicate with them and apologise for failing to act on all unsubscribe requests as required under the law,' she said.
'Many of the breaches were the result of technical and systems issues, which we fixed in 2019.
'Subsequent breaches occurred because we continued sending communications to email addresses shared by multiple Rewards members, where only one member had made an unsubscribe request.
'While we were acting on unsubscribe requests from individual Rewards members, we did not assume it meant other members sharing that email address had to be opted-out as well.
'We accept this position and have unsubscribed all members who share an email address where at least one of those members has told us they want to unsubscribe.'
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