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Alleged Spam Mailer Fined $700,000

Brendan Battles and IMG (Image Marketing Group), his company that allegedly spammed mails may've to pay $700,000 as fine on charges they apparently traded 50,000 e-mail ids devoid of acquiring their owners' consent, published Nzherald.co.nz dated September 14, 2011.

Reportedly, IMG is an advertising as well as marketing firm situated in New Zealand (NZ).

Taking help of the Auckland High Court, the Department of Internal Affairs recently issued additional civil charges on Battles and IMG.

The newest accusations try to get Battles to pay $200,000 and IMG $500,000 in fines, the maximum financial punishment within the purview of the Unsolicited Electronic Messages (UEM) Act 2007.

An entrepreneur purchased the e-mail ids that he utilized for promoting his services and goods through commercial e-mails. Consequently, a total of 400 e-mail complaints reached the entrepreneur as reply messages, while Internal Affairs' anti-spam compliance division too got numerous complaints.

Toni Demetriou, Senior Investigator stated that according to the entrepreneur, at the time of the purchase of the e-mail ids, IMG gave an assurance that the database was in compliance with the required law as also that the e-mail accountholders acquiesced to being contacted,. Nzherald.co.nz published this.

Demetriou states that IMG's trading of databases inside NZ keeps on creating problems for buyers as they dispatch commercial e-mails to those addresses. Tvnz.co.nz published this on September 14, 2011.

During June 2010, the Department cautioned that the databases mustn't be bought, while it's still probing companies which purchased as well as utilized IMG databases.

Demetriou said that there were certain misunderstanding as well as falsification made that the UEM Act allowed a person/company to dispatch commercial e-mails from business-to-business.

Actually, it was necessary to acquire suitable permission prior to dispatching any commercial e-mail, while the e-mails subsequently dispatched should bear relevance to the entrepreneurial activity, duties or functions of the e-mail receiver within an official capacity, Demetriou further said.

Meanwhile, in a similar instance of anti-spam breach in NZ, 3 Kiwis were prosecuted for their alleged involvement with a prominent global spam gang during 2008 when the gang sold male-enhancement pills, weight-loss medicines and prescription drugs through spam mails.

Related article: Alleged Spammer Being Prosecuted

» SPAMfighter News - 9/23/2011

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