Are you buying trouble when you send emails or SMS marketing messages?

The short answer is ‘Yes’.

This is the reason why: the Spam Act applies to sending marketing messages as emails and SMS messages, (but not to snail mail).

Heavy penalties apply to sending marketing messages which do not have permission from the recipient and/or does not identify the sender and/or does not make it easy to unsubscribe. These are called spam messages.

The Spam Act lays down 3 golden rules that must be followed when sending marketing messages by email and SMS:

1. Have the consent of the recipients
    
2. Identify the sender
    
3. Have an unsubscribe function.

Failure to follow the rules will result in heavy penalties.

Of course it is rule 1 - having the consent of the recipients that makes it so problematic about buying or using someone else's marketing list for emails and SMSs.