“It is very concerning that we continue to see breaches of the spam laws from large-size companies that should have good compliance practices in place.”
The stringent anti-spam laws have been in place since 2003, but ACMA initiated a crackdown this year against companies that rely on blasting out emails and texts to attract new customers or offer add-on services.
It’s the third major fine this year under the agency’s regulatory push.
In September, consumer financial company Latitude Financial was fined $1.5 million for sending more than 3 million unsolicited messages to its customers, while Sportsbet was slugged $3.7 million in fines for similar offences.
Ms O’Loughlin said Binance Australia had accepted a three-year court enforceable review of its marketing material.
“It is also disappointing that the ACMA had contacted Binance Australia on several occasions leading up to the investigation to warn it that it may have had compliance problems, and it failed to take adequate action,” she said.
The fine comes against the backdrop of a continuing meltdown in the global crypto market and the fall-out from the FTX scandal.
This week, Binance Holdings was hit by about $US3.7 billion ($5.4 billion) of net withdrawals in a 24-hour period as customers seek to take back custody of their coins.
The company’s founder, Changpeng Zhao, tweeted about the massive outflow of customer funds that “we have seen this before”, and “I actually think it is a good idea to ‘stress test withdrawals’ … on a rotating basis.”
