ANRCTI enforced the first fine for sending unrequested commercial messages, following an inquiry which revealed that the subject had not obtained the addressees’ consent for sending such a communication (spam). The inquiry was initiated upon receiving a complaint, at the end of 2007, the first one submitted to ANRCTI after the take over of relevant attributions.
The complaint showed that, starting from September 2007, the plaintiff had been receiving a number of unrequested commercial messages that promoted a newsletter and a company. Following the inquiry conducted by the ANRCTI control personnel, the sender of these unrequested commercial messages (without the plaintiff’s prior consent) was found to be the company Urban & Asociatii. This company was imposed a contravention fine amounting to RON 1000.
During the first moths of 2008, ANRCTI has received approximately 50 complaints on unrequested commercial messages and the corresponding inquiries are currently in process. It is worth mentioning the fact that some of these complaints envisage the same company, which will be fined accordingly.
The National Regulatory Authority for Communications and Information Technology (ANRCTI) took over relevant attributions in the field of information technology, including within the scope of Law no.365/2002, by Article 3(3.2) of the Regulations for the organisation and functioning of the National Regulatory Authority for Communications and Information Technology, approved by Government Decision no.415/2007, pursuant to which ANRCTI “monitors and controls compliance with the legal provisions in the e-commerce field, in its capacity as a regulatory authority, in accordance with the provisions of Law no.365/2002 on electronic commerce, republished”.
ANRCTI cannot investigate and solve a complaint on receiving unrequested commercial messages unless it specifies the content of the respective spam message and is accompanied by the original message or by the respective e-mail header (which may be forwarded using the function “Forward as Attachment”), as well as the plaintiff’s identification data (including a telephone number and an e-mail address). Complaints may be sent – in electronic format – to the following address: relatii_cu_publicul@anrcti.ro. Such complaints may be also sent by regular mail or personally submitted directly to the ANRCTI headquarters registration office (14 Libertatii Blvd., sector 5, Bucharest).