Earlier this year I wrote about plans to introduce airport body scanners in Australia and the topic stirred up a lot of debate. Getting a body scan at the airport doesn’t bother me, but many commenters were opposed to the idea. Plans are moving forward nonetheless, with the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) issuing a consultation paper on how to appropriately regulate the deployment of scanners and seeking public comment.
A common trap with mobile phone plans is that calls to so-called ‘free’ numbers (those starting with 1800) aren’t free at all — that only happens with landlines. The good news? The Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) has pledged to introduce legislative changes that will ensure those numbers can be called at landline cost (free or an untimed local call) from any mobile. The bad news? Legislative and process changes mean it won’t happen until January 1 2015 at the earliest.
If you’re considering buying an email list for marketing, don’t. Two reasons: firstly, you’ll annoy a lot of people. Secondly, you could get busted by the Australian Communications and Marketing Authority (ACMA), as travel marketing company Ezystays learned this week.
It’s an unusual day when the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) takes it upon itself to launch a set to help people check for a specific malware variant. So count today as unusual. The DNS-OK site was developed to help individuals check if their DNS settings have been maliciously altered by the DNSChanger malware, which spread rapidly in late 2011.
Premium rate SMS services are a waste of money, but many people foolishly or unknowingly sign up for them. The Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) has further tightened the rules regarding these insidious money sinks, which should stop customers being sucked into them.
Every time a spammer gets busted, the net breathes a sigh of relief. Communications regulator the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) has issued formal warnings to two local companies which have repeatedly ignored the provisions of the Spam Act, sending messages without consent and offering no unsubscribe facilities.
Vodafone’s main response to the litany of complaints that kicked off late last year has been to spend up on network improvements of variable helpfulness. The Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) has now ordered it to fix up the other element that led to massive dissatisfaction with Vodafone: the way it described network coverage and its processes for handling complaints.
The annual Communications Report from the Australian Communications and Media Authority offers a wealth of statistics about how we get online and what we do when we get there. Here are the seven which stuck out for us.
Telstra’s long been the whipping boy of Current Affairs television when it comes to excessive bill charges, so it’s great to see that the telco has finally moved to improving its usage alerts for customers. At least when it comes to voice, SMS and MMS usage.
From next February, mobile providers won’t be able to easily charge you thousands of dollars extra if you exceed your monthly-cap. We explain how the new rules will help, and where you’ll still need to help yourself.
