Just weeks after fining the Commonwealth Bank a record $3.35 million for sending spam, the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) has slapped a $2 million fine on food delivery service Doordash for doing the same.
An investigation by ACMA found Doordash had sent 560,000 emails to people who had unsubscribed from receiving such messages, and 515,000 text messages without an unsubscribe link.
For breaching Australia’s spam laws, Doordash paid a fine of $2,100,320 , and must appoint an independent consultant to review it is compliance with the law for the next three years.
The delivery platform tried to argue its messages were not spam as they were “solely factual” in nature and outside the scope of spam rules.
But ACMA found these messages contained offers to join the delivery platform as a driver and so fell under the scope of spam.
“When messages include this kind of content they are considered commercial under spam rules and must include an unsubscribe facility,” said ACMA Chair Nerida O’Loughlin.
“Australians find it incredibly frustrating when they receive marketing messages from businesses like DoorDash after they have taken the time to unsubscribe.”
“DoorDash is a large business conducting high-volume marketing so there is no excuse for non-compliance.”
O’Loughlin added that all Australian companies should take the opportunity to review their spam compliance.
For its part, a DoorDash spokesperson told Information Age the company takes its legal obligations under the Spam Act and all applicable laws "seriously".
"The investigation was the product of Dasher onboarding communications that were mistaken for transactional messages and a technical error in our consumer messaging system that has since been remediated."
In the past 18 months, ACMA has collected more than $10 million in penalties from businesses for breaching spam and telemarketing laws.
This includes the Commonwealth Bank which in June was fined more than $3 million for sending 65 million spam emails, including 5,000 to people who had unsubscribed from marketing messages.