Eyewear retailer Luxottica – the parent of OPSM, Oakley and Sunglass Hut – has been fined $1.5 million for sending more than 200,000 spam messages to customers.

The company sent 1231 marketing emails without a functional unsubscribe option and 112,348 texts and emails to customers who had unsubscribed between November 2022 and May 2023, according to the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA).

About half of the emails without the unsubscribe option were order confirmations and password reset messages, but also included clearly commercial content.

“Once emails include this kind of marketing content they are commercial under the spam rules and must include the option to unsubscribe from further messages,” said ACMA member Samantha Yorke.

“It is unacceptable to include advertising or promotional material if a customer has no way to opt out of receiving these messages.”

Aside from the fine, Luxottica must appoint an independent consultant to review its compliance with the spam rules for three years and report regularly to the ACMA.

Similar penalties were recently given to multiple retailers including Outdoor Supacentre and Kmart. Over the last 18 months, businesses have paid more than $12.7 million worth of fines for their spam law breaches.