Archive | August, 2009

SMS spammers suffer ‘no show’ judgment

By on 19 August 2009 in advertising, Spam Act

five-blanksWe reported in January 2009 that ACMA had launched legal action against a bunch of companies and individuals alleged to be involved in an illegal SMS spam racket.

Five of the respondents to the Federal Court action have failed to take necessary procedural steps, and the Court has agreed to ACMA’s application for default judgments.  After hearing evidence about the defaults and the original conduct, the Court has ordered:

  • that parties including Mobilegate Ltd, Winning Bid Pty Ltd, Simon Anthony Owen, Tarek Andreas Salcedo and Glenn Christopher Maughan have breached the Spam Act and / or Trade Practices Act in various ways;
  • that they be restrained from certain conduct, of the kind involved in the scam, for seven years; and
  • the matter be re-listed for directions in relation to any penalty hearing as the above respondents on 18 September 2009.

The case against other respondents, who have defended the case, continues.

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Telstra fined for Do Not Call breaches

By on 18 August 2009 in advertising, DNCR Act

do-not-call
Telstra has paid a $101,200 infringement notice for telemarketing to numbers on the Do Not Call Register more than 30 days after they were registered.

ACMA announced its biggest scalp yet under the new law, following an investigation into calls made by an offshore call centre on behalf of Telstra.  Inexplicably, Telstra allowed illegal calls to continue after ACMA had raised concerns based on several complaints.

“The investigation found that inadequate compliance systems, procedures and supervision had contributed to calls being made to numbers on the Register where the consumers were not existing Telstra customers.”

Telstra may be the biggest Do Not Call catch so far for ACMA, but it’s not the record penalty payer.  That ‘honour’ belongs to Dodo at $147,400.

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A taxing time for carriers

By on 6 August 2009 in Telecommunications Act

calculatorIf you hold (or recently held) a communications carrier licence, 28 September 2009 is a key date.  That’s the last day for filing an Eligible Revenue Return (‘ERR’) with the Australian Communications and Media Authority (‘ACMA’).

The ERR has a key purpose:  To determine what proportion of the national communications subsidy the client will be required to fund.

It’s a very specialised return and carriers have to get it right … and get it in on time.  No extension is possible.

Telecommunications law expert Peter Moon explains this unique regime.

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Saving legal costs: DIY ‘discovery’

By on 3 August 2009 in General, How not to do it

Law BooksIt’s a sad fact of life that ISPs and telcos sometimes end up in court cases.  The saddest fact of all is the legal bill that’s usually involved.

From a lawyer’s perspective, there’s a lot that clients can do to save time and money.  We’ll look at some key strategies in this series of posts.

Today, let’s look at the legal process of ‘discovery’, and why it needn’t add a small fortune to the bill.

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Spot Check: Are your price reduction ads putting you at risk?

By on 2 August 2009 in advertising, Spot Check, Trade Practices Act

NEW mobile phone!! WAS $399 NOW $199!!

BRAND NEW phone!!  $199 – SAVE over 50%!!

1052433_shoppingAds that show ‘two price’ or ‘was / now’ pricing are common, effective and legal … provided they’re not misleading. There are special rules about how to get ‘was / now” pricing ads right. While care needs to be taken, getting it right is relatively easy.

Getting it wrong can be costly, as the former owners of the Zamel’s jewellery chain have found – the ACCC took them to court over allegedly misleading ‘was / now’ price ads in one of their catalogues. In January 2009, the court handed down a fine of $380,000.

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