I recently wrote a post on the definition of spam in a 21st Century marketing context which touched on the topic of what happens if you get caught spamming in Australia. The process is similar in most western countries. In case you don’t want to read the whole thing, here’s a quick summary:

1. You generally get an official warning from the Australian Communications and Media Authority first, but;
2. There are fines of up to $220,000 per day for a first offence for a business entity
3. Do it again and you risk a range of harsh penalties, you’ll get an infringement notice and we’re talking anything from a few thousand to a few million dollars: read some case studies here

If you live in Nigeria your government probably won’t take a whole lot of action if you decide to send unsolicited email with little regard for the recipients’ rights (or intelligence). However, if you live in Australia, or any of the other more progressive countries with stern privacy laws, the consequeneces of sending out bulk email can be severe, even if you think you’re doing the right thing (in one case a managing director of an infringing company was ordered to pay $1 million out of his own pocket).

People generally only want to receive email they’re expecting to get, so no matter how great you think your offer is, if you send an unnounced message to a bunch of people who aren’t waiting to receive it, it’s not going to go over very well. At best they’ll ignore you, at worst, they’ll report you to the authorities. The Australian government provides a handy online form for reporting spam and to their credit, they even provide a plugin for Outlook and Outlook Express, which means that if you send email people aren’t expecting to get, you are literally only one mouse-click away from being reported to the Australian Communications and Media Authority (other countries have similar systems in place).

If someone does lodge a complaint against you (everyone’s definition of spam is different, even people who opted in can change their mind, it happens) and it’s your first offence, expect to receive the following email from Alana Keynes, or one of her colleagues in the Australian Government (or a government near you).

The following message was passed onto me by the client who received it (we had nothing to do with it, I swear!) And remember, this is just for a first, seemingly innocent offence. Do it again and you could end up in court:

—

To Whom It May Concern:

The Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) is responsible for the investigation of complaints of alleged breaches of the Spam Act 2003.

This email is to inform you that ACMA has received a complaint from [the complaintants email address was here] alleging that a commercial electronic message (email), that did not meet the requirements of the Act, was sent on 1 July 2008 from [senders name went here] with the subject heading “Association Member Survey”.

Specifically, the complainant alleges that no consent to receive such messages was given.

The Act makes it an offence to send unsolicited commercial electronic messages with an Australian link. ‘Unsolicited’ refers to messages that are sent without the consent of the recipient.

The Act requires that senders of commercial electronic messages must include accurate identifying information about the organisation or person that authorised the sending of the message, and must include a functional unsubscribe facility.  All requests to unsubscribe must be actioned within five working days.

At this time ACMA would simply like to ensure that you and your staff are fully aware of the Act’s requirements. To assist in this, ACMA maintains extensive information regarding compliance at www.spam.acma.gov.au (click on ‘Understanding spam’ and ‘Ensuring that you don’t spam’).

However, please be aware that if ACMA receives further complaints about your activities, or other information that indicates non-compliance with the Act, we may initiate further investigative action.  This could include further inquiries into this complaint or a formal ACMA investigation as to whether a breach of the Act has occurred.

It is important that all senders of commercial electronic messages are fully aware of the requirements of the Act, as the penalties that can be imposed under the Act are substantial, with fines of up to $220,000 per day for a first offence for a business entity.

Please ensure that the complainant’s email address is removed from all electronic mailing lists immediately, and that all future electronic correspondence complies with the Act.

Please respond to this message to ensure it has been received by the correct recipient.

Regards

Alana Keynes
Compliance Officer
Anti-Spam Team
Australian Communications and Media Authority
1300 855 180

—

Bottom line: Just because people are a member of an organisation, or accidentally left a box ticked on an online survey they filled out, doesn’t mean they want to hear from YOU. Don’t send anyone anything unless you know they specifically requested it or you’re wasting time, pissing people off and jousting with the law, none of which is good for your brand. My golden rule for sending commercial email messages is:

“Only send an email if you know the person would complain if they didn’t get it.”

Footnote: US marketing guru Seth Godin has an excellent email checklist you might like to consider before you send any email message, bulk, commercial, personal or otherwise. It’s well worth a read.

OK, so that’s an inflamatory headline… I will disclaim up front that I love Wikipedia and definitely don’t endorse anyone trying to use it for shameless self promotion, but as the world’s most popular source of information on pretty much everything, Wikipedia is now an unavoidable part of public relations practice. People trust it as much as they trust the Encyclopedia Britannica and it’s often the first point of reference for anyone doing Internet research; you want to make sure references to your company are balanced. Like anything, there’s a right way and a wrong way to go about it though; the last thing you want to do is create bad PR for yourself by annoying people, abusing the system or acting in bad faith. If you take the time to learn some basic principles, act in good faith and don’t abuse the system, it will pay off.

Lesson #1 — You Have no Control

Anyone can edit Wikipedia; you probably know this already. It means you can write whatever you want and it also means anyone can change what you wrote. Forget about ever having any semblance of control. You don’t and you won’t. This is the most important thing to understand about Wikipedia. You can influence what is said about your company through intelligent discussion, but you can’t control it.

Lesson #2 — Understand the Community and Know the Rules

Don’t even think about starting to edit an article (or creating one) until you know your way around. Read all about Wikipedia first and make sure you understand what it is and what it is not. Know the rules (namely everything you write must be neutral and verifiable by external sources). If you have any questions, ask them. The best way to learn how to use it is to start by making some small changes, or adding content to a subject you know something about and can easily reference. If you’re a fan of a famous band, or a football club and have some reference material on hand, feel free to add to that topic, making sure you attribute your sources and follow the rules. It’s also a good idea to read and participate in a few ‘discussion’ pages as well (each article has a discussion page associated with it where people can talk about what should be in the article) so you get a feel for the kinds of people who may want to challenge what you have to say. A good start is the McDonald’s discussion page, or if you’re feeling brave, the Scientology discussion page!

Lesson #3 — When You Can and Can’t Create an Article for Your Organisation

These are the rules about what companies can have a page (I’ve extracted them from the guidelines):

• Articles about companies and products are written in an objective and unbiased style. Article topics must be third-party verifiable, so articles about very small “garage” or local companies are typically unacceptable. External links to commercial organizations are acceptable if they identify major organizations associated with a topic (see finishing school for an example).
• An organization is generally considered notable if it has been the subject of significant coverage in reliable, independent secondary sources. Trivial or incidental coverage of a subject by secondary sources (eg. one small article in a local newspaper) is not sufficient to establish notability. All content must be verifiable.
• Organizations are usually notable if the scope of activities are national or international in scale and information can be verified by sources that are reliable and independent of the organization.
• A primary test of notability is whether people independent of the subject itself (or of its manufacturer, creator, or vendor) have actually considered the company, corporation, product or service notable enough that they have written and published non-trivial works that focus upon it.

If you think you fit that criteria and there isn’t currently an article about your company, you can probably now feel free to create one. I won’t go into technical specs, but there’s plenty of info in the Wikipedia help files.

Lesson #4 — Editing an Existing Company Page

If someone else has already created the article and you feel you know your way around Wikipedia well enough, dive right in and edit it, just make sure everything you say has been published somewhere other than Wikipedia, and remain neutral! There are guidelines about conflicts of interests which you should follow too, the main one being “Do not edit Wikipedia to promote your own interests, or those of other individuals, companies, or groups, unless you are certain that the interests of Wikipedia remain paramount.” Obviously it’s a grey line, so if in doubt, ask yourself ‘what would I do if the media were watching me right now’ (chances are, they very well may be!).

Feel free to list company achievements (record companies are notorious for doing this for bands), and if someone has written something nasty and unverified, you can delete it. Just make sure you do everything in good faith and understand that if you stop acting in good faith, it’ll look really bad and the bad PR will far outweigh all your good efforts. If you break the rules, you can also be certain your contribution will  be deleted altered soon after you write it, so don’t waste your energy.

Lesson #5 — What to Do if Your Company Doesn’t Qualify for a Wikipedia Article

If other people haven’t written enough about your company for it to qualify for its own legitimate article here are a few ways to get a mention:

• Do some genuinely useful research about a topic that’s related to your company and publish it on your website. You can then reference your site on Wikipedia.
• Read up on the external links policies and see if your company fits the bill. (ie. External links to commercial organizations are acceptable if they identify major organizations associated with a topic (see finishing school for an example)).

Lesson #6 — Wikipedia is Not an SEO Tool

External links from Wikipedia don’t count towards your page’s ranking in Google. It’s as simple as that. If you’re trying to use Wikipedia as a way to get links for SEO reasons, give up. There’s no point!