Unsolicited external e-mails, commonly known as 'spam', can be misused by scammers, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has warned in a submission to the National Office for the Information Economies.
The submission has been prepared to assist NOIE in its review of the extent of the spam problem in Australia. These issues will be discussed at a forthcoming Roundtable hosted by NOIE involving government agencies, industry and consumer groups.
Current reports indicate that spam in Australia may have grown as much as sixfold in the last year. In the US figures suggest that up to 20 per cent of all e-mails may fit the category of spam and 50 per cent of all unsolicited commercial e-mail contains fraudulent or deceptive content. When this unsolicited e-mail contains false and misleading information, this raises concerns under Part V of the Trade Practices Act 1974.
"Unsolicited e-mail is a cheap and effective way in which scammers can promote pyramid selling schemes, health product scams and other misleading and deceptive statements about products and services", ACCC Chairman, Professor Allan Fels, said today. "Scams can spread very quickly across several jurisdictions via e-mail so the potential for harm is greater than ever".
The ACCC has taken action in a number of cases where e-mail was used as a vehicle to promote pyramid selling schemes. These include the World Netsafe scheme and Skybiz. Recently, the ACCC also filed proceedings in relation to domain name renewals containing misleading and deceptive information which were sent via a number of channels, including e-mail.
"But not all unsolicited e-mail is dangerous or misleading, some e-mails do promote legitimate products and services and would not raise issues under the Trade Practices Act. Nevertheless, consumers may be concerned about receiving unsolicited e-mail for privacy reasons, the costs associated with downloading such materials and the impact of extra traffic on the performance of the Internet.
"The recently released Australian e-commerce Best Practice Model provides that business should only send commercial e-mail to people they have an existing relationship with or people who have said they want to receive commercial e-mail. There must also be a simple and effective 'opt out' procedure. It is important that developments such as the Best Practice Model needs are monitored to encourage compliance", Professor Fels said.