Troy isn't subscribed to the DNS list so I've forwarded his reponse ...


Josh
--
Co-founder CAUBE.AU - http://www.caube.org.au

Note: any views expressed are my own and are not necessarily shared by my
employer.

-----Original Message-----
From: Troy Rollo - CAUBE.AU Chair [mailto:chair§caube.org.au]
Sent: Thursday, 6 September 2001 11:55
To: caube-au (cauce-aus§corvu.com)
Cc: dns§auda.org.au; Bruce.Tonkin§melbourneit.com.au
Subject: RE: [DNS] Melbourne IT Spam...


At 02:00 6/09/2001 +1000, Terence wrote:

> > A copy of the email can be found here: http://joshrowe.com/melbit.html
>
>it does not look it came from melit...

I agree. The URL in the click-through points to "www.element.net.au". 
Melbourne IT have a partner program that involves click-through 
registration - it looks like one of their partners is into spam.

Regarding this comment from Bruce Tonkin:

> > My understanding is that the email only went to existing
> > direct retail customers of Melbourne IT, either ".com" or
> > ".com.au" domain name customers. It is normal business
> > practice for businesses to contact their existing customers.

In fact under the provisions of the Privacy Amendment (Private Sector) Act 
2000 (Cth), it will be illegal to do this with newly collected email 
addresses after the 21st of December. Describing something that the 
Parliament has seen fit to make illegal as "normal business practice" is 
cause for significant concern in itself. The best that can be said it "it's 
not illegal (for another few months at least)", but this is hardly an 
argument that a "reputable" business wants to be seen to make.

Given that this behaviour will be illegal in a few months, if are in fact 
still engaging in this behaviour I would suggest that you are either poorly 
prepared, or have entirely neglected to prepare, for your obligations under 
that Act. Among your other obligations - as of the 21st of December you 
will be required by law to have a privacy policy, and to make it available 
to anybody who asks for it.

More information on this is available from the Privacy Commissioner's web 
site at http://www.privacy.gov.au/private/index.html and the latest draft 
of the Commissioner's implementation guidelines are at 
http://www.privacy.gov.au/rfc/index.html#1

__________________________________________________________________________
Troy Rollo, Chairman, CAUBE.AU	 		chair§caube.org.au
    Fight spam in Australia - Join CAUBE.AU - http://www.caube.org.au/
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