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AT&T Wireless is coming under fire for sending a message to their subscribers reminding them to watch the season premiere of American Idol. AT&T's spokesman has defended the campaign, pointing out that the messages were free, only sent to AT&T subscribers (with whom AT&T has an ongoing business relationship), and gave recipients a way to opt out.
Recently, Optus was fined $110,000 AU (about $72,000 US) for sending text messages to about 20,000 of their subscribers promoting their new Zoo service. Optus's message did not clearly identify Optus as the sender, in violation of Australia's Spam Act of 2003.
Separate events, but they do highlight three common issues:
1) Make sure your customers know what to expect from you. Suddenly changing the overall content of what you're sending is likely to cause spam complaints to skyrocket.
2) Be clear about who you are. Choose an identity and stick with it. In email terms, sending as different entities or using a large number of domain names in your messages makes it harder for recipients to identify that you're the company they're expecting to hear from.
3) Understand your local laws, and the laws of your receivers. Optus ran afoul of the Spam Act requirement that "the message clearly and accurately identifies the individual or organisation who authorised the sending of the message". In Optus's case, they used the sender identification '966' ('ZOO'). AT&T Wireless, however, clearly identified themselves as the sender.