Privacy and the Spam Act in Online Competitions

Online competitions are a cheap and useful tool for businesses to gain information about potential customers. Organisations using online competitions, however, must comply with a number of legal requirements; two such requirements are the Privacy Act 1993 and the Unsolicited Electronic Messages Act 2007 (the Spam Act). In a study conducted in 2009, 40 competitions were analysed for their compliance with these Acts. The results of the study demonstrate considerable non-compliance as well as some misunderstanding of the requirements of these Acts. This article, in addition to explaining the law, provides best practice guidelines for organisations running such competitions.