In the first court action taken by Australian Communication and Media Authority against unsolicited SMS messages, 2 companies and 3 individuals were fined with a total of A$15.75mil (RM49.14mil) for contravening the Spam Act.

Published: Saturday October 24, 2009 (TheStar.com)

Spammers fined massive RM49.14mil

MELBOURNE: Two companies and three individuals have been hit with penalties totalling A$15.75mil (RM49.14mil) for contravening the Spam Act, the first court action taken against unsolicited SMS messages.

The fines were handed down in the Federal Court in Brisbane on Friday.

Mobilegate Ltd and Winning Bid Pty Ltd were found to have contravened the Spam Act and the Trade Practices Act 1974 in August 2009, the Australian Associated Press reports.

Three individuals former Winning Bid director Simon Anthony Owen, current Mobilegate director Tarek Andreas Salcedo and Winning Bid employee Glenn Christopher Maughan were also found responsible for the breaches.

The case was the first court action taken by the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) against unsolicited SMS messages.

ACMA acting chairman Chris Cheah said it was a significant outcome for all mobile phone users.

"The maximum penalties provided for under the Spam Act are very high," he said.

"The substantial penalties imposed by the court in this case show that spam will not be tolerated in Australia." - Bernama

Other posts related to online scams, cheatings and legal issues are:

• Online beauty product fraud
  
• Another spammer gets jailed
  
• Another SMS scam
  
• New SMS scam
  
• 2 more Internet scam sites blocked by SC
  
• Crackdown on Internet scam in Malaysia - 6 sites blocked
• Spam king arrested!
• Spam - Firm ordered to pay £750
• Internet Banking scam in Malaysia: 13 youth nabbed

1. Mattel, world famous toy maker, launches its own e-commerce website, MattelShop.com, offering a selection of its popular brands along with social shopping features. Read here for the story - Mattel Launches Ecommerce Website (Source: WebProNews)
2. Amazon.com recorded 69% surge in profit for the third quarter this year, mainly from the sales of its e-reader, Kindle, its no.1 bestselling item in term of unit sales and dollar. Read more from here - Amazon profit surges 69% (Source: CNN Money.com)

The Star reported that at least 66 people were cheated almost RM73,445 when they performed online purchases of skincare products such as facial and eye masks with "BigPussyCat" website.

These people were tempted by the cheaper prices of the products offered as compared to the market rate or over the shelves.

Read the full news below - Source: The Star, 9 June 2009.

Tuesday June 9, 2009

Online beauty products deal turns ugly for 66

KUALA LUMPUR: At least 66 people paid the price for their ignorance when they were cheated of their money after making Internet purchases of skincare products from someone named “Big Pussycat.”

The victims made online transfers amounting to RM73,445.10 for the products which came under names such as “My Beauty” and “My Sherman Beauty” that had been advertised on “Big Pussycat’s.” website

These products included facial and eye masks.

Salesman Chong Wei Lun, 29, made purchases totalling RM2,910 for his girlfriend on May 4 but the products never arrived.

“The price of the items was cheaper than those off the shelf,” he said as he explained why he was lured by the advertisement.

Chong was one of the 11 dissatisfied customers who turned to MCA Public Services and Complaints Department head Datuk Michael Chong to voice their grievance.

At a press conference yesterday, another victim Winnie Tan, 20, said she discovered that she had been ripped off only after her friends told her to do a more thorough check on the advertisement.

She saw website postings warning people that the sale of the skincare line was not genuine.

Michael Chong advised the public, especially young people, to be more cautious when buying goods featured on the Internet, adding that he would submit all the complaints to the police.

A prestigious Japanese university, Aoyama Gakuin University is giving out free iPhone 3G to its 550 students from the School of Social Informatics.

The main purpose of this idea is to use the iPhone, equipped with the GPS systems, to trace the whereabout of the students as a mean to check their attendance. Of course, the iPhone will also be used as a tool for their studies such as searching for course materials uploaded, lectures videos and tests. It is also hope that new iPhone applications can be developed by the students.

Universities used to give out free laptop, free webcam (especially for e-learning programmes) and now iPhone. I believe this is a very good move as it helps to bring out more creative applications designed by the fresh mind of the young users, which in turn will benefit others as well. I do hope that more educational institutions will take up such initiatives in the very near future, not just merely using it to nab the truants but more on creating the space and avenue for more new applications.

For more reading, click here - University use iPhone to nab truants (The Star, 1st June 2009)

The outbreak of the AH1N1 virus has triggered the fear of another deadly flu virus like the previous SARS or even the deadly Spanish Flu which killed 40 million people.

BBC News has come out with a day-to-day WHO outbreak map to put into visual on how the virus spread throughout the world. Click here to view the full map.



Hope that this pandemic will stop and cured in the shortest time that is possible.

Beware when you starts to receive multiple sales calls from nowhere or some commercial sms. This could be due to the fact that your personal data has been compromised by some of the companies.

The Star run a special report on the individual data protection issue on Sunday, 3rd May 2009. These are some of the except:

"KUALA LUMPUR: For a mere 10 sen, your personal data are being sold to unauthorised bodies. A list of 1,000 entries containing names, handphone numbers, type of credit card owned and issuing banks, and place of work costs only RM100.

If you regularly receive unsolicited sales calls, messages or e-mails, then in all likelihood, your data have been collected and sold to third parties.

With such baseline information in the hands of the unscrupulous, more particulars could easily be gathered and your identity stolen – for transactions and the purchase of goods or services without your knowledge.

........

The fact is any database is vulnerable – from loyalty cards and telecommunications companies to housing developers to members-only clubs – and there will be a demand for it as it represents a list of potential customers.

An entry from a database of an exclusive club comprising Datuks and Tan Sris, for example, could fetch RM3 each and resold for RM4."

Source: The Star

My two cents:

This is really frightening that individual personal information such as banking and contact information can be obtain so easily. The most worrying part is the possibilities of the data to be misused by those irresponsible parties such as applying bank loans, credit cards, or even from the shark loan. Something has to be done by all parties to protect the customer's privacy.

Thinking of setting up an online business? It is easy said than actually putting up a running website. There are many considerations to be taken into account before a web site can be properly set up.

Besides having a good and feasible online business plan, one must also consider the web hosting options that are available in the market. Being a newbie in the e-business, there are a lot of options being available online for the hosting of a web site. The question is how to choose the best option from the thousands of services offered especially with the focus on issues related to affordability, high reliability plus rapid technical support whenever is needed.

The size of the disk space and the speed of the data transfer should also taken into consideration especially if your web site contain scores of high resolution images or you are expecting to receive high traffic to your web site. A site that is always down is the reason why your customers are turned away from your web site.

A good hosting search site or directory should be able to provide an up-to-date ranking of the available hosting plans by various companies. It also should offer a complete guide on web host for beginners to learn about the hosting such as domain names applications, bandwidth and some basic technical terms related to the hosting.