Spam according to the Australian Law: Spam Act 2003 – came into effect on 10 April 2004.

To comply with Australia’s spam laws, a commercial electronic message must meet the following conditions.

Any message sent to you that doesn’t meet all three of these conditions is defined as spam:

Consent

it must be sent with your consent. You may give express consent, or consent may be inferred from your conduct and ‘existing business or other relationships’

Identify

it must contain accurate information about the person or organisation that authorised the sending of the message

Unsubscribe

it must contain a functional ‘unsubscribe’ facility to allow you to opt out from receiving messages from that source in the future

A spam message is not necessarily sent out in ‘bulk’ to numerous addresses – under Australian law, a single electronic message can also be considered spam.

Exemptions

Electronic messages from certain sources are exempted from the legislation. These include messages from: government bodies, registered political parties, charities, religious organizations, educational institutions (sent to attending and former students and their households).