By Dan Satherley
Since 2007, it has been illegal to send unsolicited commercial messages via email. And from tomorrow, it will also be illegal to send them via fax.
Although the growing sophistication of spam filters has virtually eliminated the daily need to purge our inboxes of ads for V!@GR4 and Nigerian inheritance scams, owners of fax machines are apparently still being inundated.
Internal Affairs has received many inquiries from people receiving unsolicited commercial faxes since the Unsolicited Electronic Messages Act came into force in 2007, but could take no action because faxes were excluded.
But from today, they'll be covered under the same law. This means fax spam will have to include accurate contact information, and recipients must be able to unsubscribe by sending back a fax telling the sender they want to opt out.
Internal Affairs is advising senders of unsolicited faxes to familiarise themselves with the Act so they don't get in trouble.
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