Site Changes

On 1 November 2010 the Office of the Privacy Commissioner was integrated into the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner and a new website established at www.oaic.gov.au.

Note 1: Major changes to the Privacy Act 1988 will come into effect in March 2014. Agencies, businesses and not for profits need to start preparing for these changes. For more information go to our privacy law reform page at www.oaic.gov.au
Note 2: From 12 March 2013 content is no longer being added to, or amended, on this site, consequently some information may be out of date. For new privacy content visit the www.oaic.gov.au website.

What can I do to stop a business sending me commercial electronic messages?

If you know the business and consented to receive messages, your first step should be to contact the business responsible and ask it to stop.

Every commercial electronic message that a business sends you should include information on how you can unsubscribe. Businesses should not send you further messages after you unsubscribe. If a business does not comply with these rules, it will likely breach the Spam Act.

Because businesses sometimes hire other companies to do their marketing for them, it is best to contact the business that authorised sending the spam.

You should be cautious before replying directly to a message. You should only do this when you think the message is from a legitimate Australian company and you expected to receive messages from it.

Many spam messages include unsubscribe links in emails just to test whether your email address is 'live'. If you respond to the message, this could mean more spam being sent to you. If you think a message is spam from an illegitimate source, the best thing to do is delete the message.

Remember, some spammers go to a lot of trouble to try to make a spam message look like it is from a legitimate source - if in doubt, delete it!

If a business or other type of organisation keeps sending you unwanted messages, you may be able to complain under the Spam Act or Privacy Act. See Who can I complain to about receiving spam?.

Only a small percentage of 'spam traffic' is generated in Australia and a lot of spam is sent randomly , often to promote scams like 'phishing'. It will generally be difficult for the Spam Act or Privacy Act to offer protections against spam sent from dubious overseas sources. For this type of spam, you should consider installing "SpamMATTERS" from the Australian Communications and Media Authority. While this is not a spam filter, this software reports spam emails to ACMA so as to help in the fight against spam. More information on this is available at www.spam.acma.gov.au.

More information

For more information about unsubscribing see Information Sheet 26.
Detailed information about the Spam Act is also available from the Australian Communications and Media Authority at www.spam.acma.gov.au.

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