Hong Kong Anti-SPAM Law
See our latest update on the Hong Kong Anti-SPAM Law here.
It is no exaggeration to describe eMarketing as a revolution for the marketing industry. For the first time, it gives businesses of any size the ability to publish to the mass market, making it easy to get the word out and drum up new business, whilst getting your brand in thousands of mailboxes. You can even track to see how successful the e-mail was with statistics to tell you who opened the e-mail and which links they clicked on! They can even track if you forwarded it to a friend. All this gives valuable feedback in order to see which services, products or articles are best received by your clients… But is it legal?
Hong Kong has promised plans to enact an anti-spam law at some time, to crack down on companies that send unsolicited e-mails. Consensus is that Hong Kong will follow most of the policies laid down by the Australian Spam Act 2003, which came into force on April 10th 2004. Many documents on these policies can be downloaded from www.acma.gov.au under the internet section.
Just last month a Hong Kong firm, Transcom Internet Services was sued for HK$11,000 by an individual located in Britain, for sending SPAM Junk email. We expect that in due course, more cases such as this will appear and Hong Kong will be forced to bring in their own Anti-Spam Law before things get out of hand.
Here at Compelite, we have already addressed these issues and our systems comply with the Australian Anti-Spam standards, as we believe they are likely what the Hong Kong standards will follow.
Here are some basic recommendations to make sure your eMarketing system does not land you in trouble:
It is no exaggeration to describe eMarketing as a revolution for the marketing industry. For the first time, it gives businesses of any size the ability to publish to the mass market, making it easy to get the word out and drum up new business, whilst getting your brand in thousands of mailboxes. You can even track to see how successful the e-mail was with statistics to tell you who opened the e-mail and which links they clicked on! They can even track if you forwarded it to a friend. All this gives valuable feedback in order to see which services, products or articles are best received by your clients… But is it legal?
Hong Kong has promised plans to enact an anti-spam law at some time, to crack down on companies that send unsolicited e-mails. Consensus is that Hong Kong will follow most of the policies laid down by the Australian Spam Act 2003, which came into force on April 10th 2004. Many documents on these policies can be downloaded from www.acma.gov.au under the internet section.
Just last month a Hong Kong firm, Transcom Internet Services was sued for HK$11,000 by an individual located in Britain, for sending SPAM Junk email. We expect that in due course, more cases such as this will appear and Hong Kong will be forced to bring in their own Anti-Spam Law before things get out of hand.
Here at Compelite, we have already addressed these issues and our systems comply with the Australian Anti-Spam standards, as we believe they are likely what the Hong Kong standards will follow.
Here are some basic recommendations to make sure your eMarketing system does not land you in trouble:
- You must clearly identify the person or organisation that sent or authorised the sending of the message
- You must clearly identify the person or organisation that you are sending the message to (no undisclosed recipients)
- You must include a functional unsubscribe facility (not type your e-mail or reply with REMOVE as your subject)
- You must not acquire, use or borrow e-mail harvesting software
- You must have one of two forms of consent, express or inferred
- You must be able to substantiate receipt of consent
Find more information about our eMarketing System or contact us.
Labels: anti-spam-law, emarketing
posted by compelite at 3:13 PM
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