content

Spam Act

The Spam Act 2003 came into force on 10 April 2004 and imposes obligations on businesses for the responsible sending of electronic messages.

Broadly, the Spam Act says that unsolicited commercial electronic messages must not be sent. "Commercial" messages are ones that offer a commercial transaction or direct the recipient to a location where a commercial transaction can take place.

Messages should only be sent to an address when it is known that the person responsible for that address has consented to receive it.

There are two forms of consent set out in the Act:

• Express consent from the person you wish to contact a direct indication that it is okay to send the message,or messages of that nature;
• Inferred consent based on a business or other relationship with the person,and their conduct.

What is the impact of the Spam Act 2003 on Vital+Vectors?

Vital+Vectors is impacted by the Spam Act 2003 because:

1. Staff members have,at their disposal,e-mail facilities which they can use to email the outside world;
2. We produce e-mail newsletters which we send to clients and prospective customers;
3. We produce,from time to time,special promotional material,which we send to the broader business community.

How are we complying with the Spam Act 2003?

Staff Emails Generally

We have provided written notice to all staff members that they are not permitted to originate or forward unsolicited electronic messages that have a commercial content.We have embodied this requirement into an email policy,which staff have agreed to.

Email Newsletters to Clients and potential Customers

We hold express consent from our members by virtue of the fact that they have paid or inquired to our services or products,which includes these communications.

Promotional Material for Clients and potential Customers

1. We hold express consent or inferred consent from all recipients on our mailing list. Some of our Clients have given us express consent to receive such communications as they have advised us verbally that they wish to receive such promotional material.

Some of our Clients have given us inferred consent on the strength of their existing subscription status with us and the fact that they have previously provided their email address to us as a result of that relationship.

Prospective Customers that we communicate with will either be former clients,prospective clients that we have already had dialogue with,or clients of the broader business community that have conspicuously published their email address and whom we feel might benefit from our range of products and services.There will be no communications by us with the general public nor will there be communications by us to email addresses where we do not know the identity of the recipient.

We recognise that non-clients may not want electronic communications from us and therefore provide a mechanism for these communications to be stopped (see points 2 and 3 below).

2. We identify ourselves. Our email messages contain clear and accurate identification of who we are and how we can be contacted.

3. We make it easy to unsubscribe. Our email messages contain a footer whereby recipients can click a link to launch an email message which has the word "Unsubscribe" pre-filled in the subject line and our email address pre-filled in the "To" field.We undertake to remove the recipient from our address list within five working days of having received an unsubscribe email from them.

Further Information

Further information on the Spam Act 2003 can be obtained from the Department of Communications,Information Technology and the Arts at http://www.dcita.gov.au/ie/spam_home.