Virgin Mobile has agreed to pay the Australian Communications and Media Authority $22,000 after breaching the Spam Act.The Australian Communications and Media Authority investigated e-mails sent to Virgin Mobile customers who opted out of receiving marketing messages from the company.

The message said, ‘When you joined us you asked not to receive any promotional material. We totally respect that decision and you can remain promo-free as long as you like. To make sure you’re still certain about this choice, we just wanted to quickly show you some examples of recent offers that we’ve sent to customers…’

The ACMA concluded that the messages were commercial electronic messages which were sent without consent and did not come with an unsubscribe option.

ACMA Chariman, Chris Chapman said, “The key tenet of the Spam Act is that commercial electronic messages cannot be sent without the consent of the recipient. An organisation must respect a person’s desire not to receive commercial electronic messages, even if it is just to ask if they have changed their mind.”

In its offer to the ACMA, Virgin Mobile has undertaken to pay $22,000 and to develop comprehensive training programs, quality assurance processes and an auditing regime.