• Woolworths has paid a record $1,003,800 fine for breaching spamming laws.
• The supermarket breached the Spam Act 2003 after continuing to send marketing emails to people who had unsubscribed from them.
• It’s the biggest infringement penalty the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) has ever given.
• Visit Business Insider Australia’s homepage for more stories.

Woolworths has been hit with a record fine after breaching spamming laws.

The Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) found Woolworths breached the Spam Act 2003 more than five million times when it kept sending marketing emails to customers who had unsubscribed. The emails were sent between October 2018 and July 2019.

By law, Australians have the right to unsubscribe from emails they don’t want to receive. In this instance, Woolies consumers said they’d attempted to unsubscribe several times from the emails but continued to receive them.

ACMA gave Woolworths an infringement notice (read: fine) of $1,003,800 – the largest ever given by the regulator – after finding its systems, processes and practices didn’t comply with spamming rules.

“The scale and prolonged nature of the non-compliance is inexcusable,” ACMA Chair Nerida O’Loughlin said in a statement. “Woolworths failed to act even after the ACMA had warned it of potential compliance issues after receiving consumer complaints.”

Woolies has also agreed to a court-enforceable undertaking where it will appoint an independent consultant to review its systems and processes, make improvements, and report to the ACMA. The company also agreed to do training and to report all non-compliance it finds to the ACMA.

“The ACMA will be actively monitoring Woolworths’ compliance with the spam laws and the commitments it has made to the ACMA,” O’Loughlin added.

The fine comes after Woolworths’ found it owed underpaid workers much more than originally announced. It initially estimated costs to total about $300 million, which has since grown to around $390 million after the supermarket giant discovered underpayments in its hospitality group ALH Hotels.

“The Group remains committed to fully rectifying any payment shortfalls across all Group businesses as quickly as possible,” Woolworths Group CEO Brad Banducci said in a statement at the time. “We thank everyone for their patience through this process.”

Follow Business Insider Australia on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram.