New Zealand Anti-Spam Legislation

This bill will affect you if you send out promotional email messages or newsletters for your business.

The Unsolicited Electronic Messages Bill or "Anti-Spam Bill" had its second reading in December last year. The Bill aims to prohibit the sending of unsolicited electronic messages (in the form of emails, text messages, or instant messages) and provide a legislative basis to combat the growth of spam.

The Bill seeks to promote the responsible use of electronic messages by:

prohibiting the sending of commercial electronic messages except where the message is sent to people who have given their prior consent to receiving those messages
prohibiting promotional electronic messages, where the recipient has indicated that she does not want to receive those messages
requiring all electronic messages to identify the person authorising the sending of the message and how that person may be contacted
including a functional unsubscribe in an electronic message
prohibiting the use of software to harvest electronic addresses, and the use of harvested address lists

You can prepare now -

There are a couple of simple steps you can take now, to prepare for the bill being passed:

When you collect email addresses from people, ask them if it's OK to send them an email/newsletter/whatever it is you send
If you are sending regular announcements/newsletters by email - make it easy for people to unsubscribe

Why its worth doing

Carefully targetted, informative, timely email promotions still offer the best return on investment. Compare:

Email ROI per $1US spent: $51.45
Print catalogs per $1US spent: $7.20
Non-email Internet marketing: $21.08

Source: Direct Marketing Association Power of Direct Report October 2006

Relevant Links:

www.parliament.nz

beehive.govt.nz

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