Well, it has been one month since the "anti-spam law" - aka the Unsolicited Electronic Message Act 2007 - and we have heard of no prosecutions! Actually there have been several hundred complaints, but so far no noise about likely prosecutions - we're assuming that the public are complaining about off-shore based spammers, which the NZ Govt is powerless to prosecute.

We have a few clients who make good use of email marketing, and they have found the transition fairly painless, mostly because the Act allows for "inferred consent", which is generally accepted to mean that if you have been sending marketing emails to people for some period of time without complaint, you can continue to do so without fear of prosecution.

The biggest change that our clients have had to make is making systems available to allow for reporting spam, and of course Unsubscribing! One such system that we use here is supplied by MobilizeMail, and is surprisingly cost effective. Certainly saves our clients heaps of time on the e-marketing side of things. Get in touch with us, or MobilizeMail, for details.

It's seems such a shame that the Act will have very little influence over the amount of spam that we actually receive, but it is good to see that the NZ Govt are thinking more about digital content when they are making their laws!