Lululemon Hit With Hefty Fine After Spam Email Breaches

Athleisure brand Lululemon has actually been fined more than $700,000 after hundreds of thousands of emails were sent out without providing the choice to unsubscribe.


The brand violated spam laws after sending out more than 370,000 e-mails containing commercial content, including shipping updates and marketing product, without an unsubscribe option, an Australian Communications and Media Authority investigation found.


The guard dog found Lululemon mischaracterised the service messages, consisting of order confirmation e-mails, that had a clear marketing purpose between December 2024 and January 2025.


"In this case Lululemon sent service e-mails such as a shipping updates that also included sales product and direct links to promos," authority member Samantha Yorke said.


Lululemon has paid the $703,000 fine, and says it takes its responsibilities seriously.


The guard dog explained the breach as .


"Businesses require to understand that marketing messages need to have an unsubscribe option and the simplest method to comply is to keep transactional or service messages different from sales material and links," Ms Yorke said.


"This is the fifth enforcement action the ACMA has undertaken in the last 18 months against companies that have improperly dealt with messages as non-commercial even though they included or had links to plainly industrial material."


In 2024, the Commonwealth Bank paid a $7.5 million penalty after it sent out more than 170 million emails that did consist of a way to unsubscribe.


Online gambling supplier PointsBet has also been hit with a $500,000 charge after sending out 700 emails including a direct link to its betting items without consisting of an unsubscribe function in 2023.


Telstra paid a $600,000 penalty after it sent near to 10.5 million text messages that did not abide by spam laws.


Lululemon was formerly fined more than $32,000 in 2017 for incorrectly informing clients they were not entitled to refunds or replacements.


The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission alleged the site incorrectly stated in ads for sale products that consumers weren't entitled to a return, solution, refund or exchange of a product under any scenario.


The athleisure brand has entered into a comprehensive court-enforceable undertaking committing it to an independent evaluation of its spam guideline compliance, according to the watchdog.


The business will need to report to the ACMA on the execution of advised improvements.


A Lululemon representative informed AAP the business was taking all appropriate legal and regulatory requirements really seriously.


"We have actually worked cooperatively with the Australian Communications and Media Authority to address their findings," the spokesperson said.


"We have finished an extensive review of our practices for interacting with our guests and have made updates to our standard visitor journey e-mails, including our order confirmation and delivery notices to guarantee continuous compliance."