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Legals

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Spam Policy

At Burst SMS, we take permission very seriously. By creating an account you are also agreeing to this anti-spam policy. SMS is the most personal and immediate communication method available. This means spam compliance is of the utmost importance. If strict rules and guidelines are not followed you can have an extremely negative impact on your brand, not to mention you can get into a lot of trouble with regulators and face heavy fines.

HigDownload Spam Compliance Guide

SPAM Compliance Guide.


Download now for more detailed information on consent types and how to gain consent.

All the information you need to easily understand the Spam Act 2003 and your responsibilities when sending SMS compliant mobile marketing messages. Burst SMS is committed to the elimination of SMS spam and the malicious use of SMS. Our web sms service has built in protections for sms resellers against spammers.


What is the Spam Act 2003?


The ACMA (Australian Communications and Media Authority) passed the spam act to crackdown on unsolicited electronic marketing and spam.

Many businesses will be aware of the Spam Act 2003 in regard to email but the law applies to all electronic messages including SMS in exactly the same way. The consequences and fines that have been issued by the ACMA during Federal Court proceedings are significant. They have broad powers.

Spam is generally associated with sending thousands of messages however under the spam act just one message sent without consent can be considered spam. The Spam Act 2003 covers email, SMS, MMS and instant messaging, phone calls and facsimile are exempt.


What are the compliance rules?


There are three primary rules that every commercial SMS message must adhere to in order to not be classified as spam.

CONSENT - You must have consent to send a commercial message, there are many ways to gain consent. See the following panels for consent rules.

SENDER IDENTIFICATION - You must identify yourself or your company when sending the message, either in a recognisable CallerID or within the message itself.

FUNCTIONAL UNSUBSCRIBE FACILITY - You must provide a conspicuous and functional unsubscribe method that is active for at least 30 days.


Getting permission to send SMS


The idea behind consent is that the recipient should want to receive your message and find it useful when they do. There are two types of consent.


1. Express consent


  • An opt-in checkbox on a web subscribe form. This checkbox must not be checked by default, the person completing the form must willingly select the checkbox to indicate they want to hear from you.
  • If someone completes an offline form like a survey or enters a competition, you can only contact them if it was explained to them that they would be contacted by email AND they ticked a box indicating they would like to be contacted.
  • Customers who have purchased from you within the last 2 years.
  • If someone gives you their business card and you have explained to them that you will be in touch, you can contact them. If they dropped their business card in a fishbowl at a trade show, there must be a sign indicating they will be contacted by SMS.

The recipient must be clearly aware that he or she may receive commercial messages in the future. You cannot send an electronic message to seek consent: this is in itself a commercial message, because it seeks to establish a business relationship. Keep a record of consent, you may need to prove it later.

2. Inferred consent


  • Through an existing business relationship. If an organisation has a strong relationship with the owner of the number such as a club member or service subscriber receiving messages may be implied.
  • Through conspicuous publication of a work-related number.

Consent may also be implied by the publishing of numbers on websites, in magazines or other publications. The recipient must be identified as relevant to your message. eg if you want to send information about a technology product the recipient must be identified as the IT manager. If there is a statement that unsolicited commercial messages are not wanted you cannot infer consent.


What kind of mobile numbers ARE NOT OK to send to?


Anything outside the examples above doesn't equal permission in our eyes, but here are some examples to make sure we're crystal clear. By using Burst SMS, you agree not to import or send to any mobile numbers which:


  • You do not have explicit, provable permission to contact in relation to the topic of the SMS you're sending.
  • You bought, loaned, rented or in any way acquired from a third party, no matter what they claim about quality or permission. You need to obtain permission yourself.
  • You haven't contacted via SMS in the last 2 years. Permission doesn't age well and these people have either changed numbers or won't remember giving their permission in the first place.
  • You scraped or copy and pasted from the web or anywhere else. Just because you have someone's number doesn't mean they want to hear from you.


What happens if you are investigated for spamming?


If we do discover that you're messaging people without their permission, we will terminate your account with Burst SMS immediately.

If you are suspected to be using fraudulent credit card information to facilitate spamming we will cooperate fully with the authorities and may disclose your account information in accordance with the Burst SMS Privacy Policy including your IP address.

If you have any questions about our Anti-Spam Policy, or if you want to report spamming activity by one of our customers, please contact our abuse department at:

Postal Address
Burst SMS
10 Hart St
Surry Hills NSW 2010
Sydney, Australia

Email support@burstsms.com