Archive for the ‘email’ Category

Largest ever spam penalty handed out in New Zealand

Tuesday, March 4th, 2014
Photo credit; epSos .de on Flickr

Photo credit; epSos .de on Flickr

Auckland company Image Marketing Group (IMG) has been ordered to pay $99,610 in the largest ever penalty imposed for sending spam in New Zealand, last month.

The Department of Internal Affairs said the penalty was imposed at the Auckland High Court under the Unsolicited Electronic Messages Act.

IMG sent a total of 519,545 messages to New Zealand e-mail addresses in December 2009, and the following year IMG conducted 21 email campaigns that promoted sales of the company’s database products. The company also sent 44,824 text messages from an Australian mobile number to New Zealand mobile phone users over a period of a month in 2009, said a statement from the department.

“IMG must now stop sending any further spam to New Zealand electronic addresses. This is a clear win for consumers who are sick and tired of receiving unwanted messages via email or texts,” team leader electronic messaging compliance Toni Demetriou said in the statement.

IMG had admitted breaching the Act and the penalties included a discount for IMG’s admissions and co-operation.

To read more about this story, click here.

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Posted in E-mail & the internet, email, New Zealand, new zealand business, offensive material | No Comments »

Amazon aims to help New Zealand start-ups

Tuesday, December 17th, 2013
Photo credit; Marciookabe on Flickr

Photo credit; Marciookabe on Flickr

Since Rod Drury and Xero showed it is possible to take on the world with a locally developed product, New Zealand has been going through a bit of a tech boom and it’s only going to get bigger.

Last month, Amazon Web Services (AWS) was in town promoting itself as the first port of call for startups wanting hosting and other cloud services.

AWS recently boosted its new company offer with the launch of AWS Activate, a bundle of services for startups providing training, user support, a community forum and credits for services. At least some of those services are free for qualifying startups.

AWS country manager Ed Lenta said he has the wave of new technology companies coming out of New Zealand in his sights.

Lenta says AWS offers startups cloud computing services so they don’t have to waste money on technology infrastructure and so they can be on equal footing with more established competitors.

Beyond that, Lenta says, AWS can also give New Zealand startups a global footprint.

To read more about this story, click here.

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Posted in cloud storage, computer, E-mail & the internet, email, emails, Going Digital, New Zealand, new zealand business, Online Sales, online shopping, onlines store | No Comments »

True Kiwi domain name tentatively set to launch near end of year

Wednesday, November 6th, 2013
Photo credit; Nick Kean on Flickr

Photo credit; Nick Kean on Flickr

The Kiwiest of domain names is getting ready to take flight in December and it’s the Kiwiest because it is literally .kiwi.

Christchurch-born Tim Johnson, head of Dot Kiwi, first had the idea for the domain name about two-and-a-half years ago.

When .kiwi launches – hopefully in December – it will be the first top level domain outside of .co.nz to get approval from the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers with a truly Kiwi feel.

“Running a new domain name is a really big responsibility, we had to meet a lot of criteria,” Johnson says.

For about $39 businesses and individuals will be able to claim email addresses and websites with .kiwi instead of .co.nz.

A percentage of Dot Kiwi’s revenue from the sale of .kiwi domains will be donated to the Dot Kiwi Christchurch Trust.

Johnson, a marketing executive, said Dot Kiwi was born from a desire to set up a company that would have the longevity to pump funds into the local community.

To read more on this story, click here.

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Posted in computer, E-mail & the internet, email, emails, New Zealand, new zealand business, New Zealand government, Online Sales, onlines store, Success story | No Comments »

New Zealand businesses fall prey to hackers

Tuesday, November 5th, 2013
Photo credit; Eliot Phillips on Flickr

Photo credit; Eliot Phillips on Flickr

Two New Zealand businesses lost “significant sums of money” after they placed orders with Chinese companies that fell victim to internet hackers, police in New Zealand said recently.

Both companies had good relationships with their Chinese suppliers for many years, paying deposits into international bank accounts for goods which they then  imported into New Zealand.

In both cases, the e-mail accounts of the Chinese suppliers had been hacked, resulting in the Kiwi companies inadvertently rerouting payments to the hackers.

“The New Zealand businesses received an e-mail asking them to transfer their usual deposit into a different bank account. When the businesses replied about why they have been asked to deposit money into an account that differs from the usual one, the companies were confirmed that the directions are correct,” the police said.

“The confirmation e-mail was a fraudulent message that has been sent by hackers who accessed the Chinese e-mail account,” said the police.

The crime had come to light after several weeks when the Chinese suppliers contacted the New Zealand importers to inquire why they had failed to pay their deposits.

To read more about this story, click here.

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Posted in computer, E-mail & the internet, email, emails, fraud, hacking, New Zealand, new zealand business, online scams, online security | No Comments »

Serial spammer gets hit with huge fine

Wednesday, September 25th, 2013

In a bit of news that will make anyone with an email inbox smile just a little, an Australian man who spammed New Zealand businesses has been fined $95,000 for doing so.

Photo credit; epSos .de on Flickr

Photo credit; epSos .de on Flickr

Wayne Robert Mansfield of Perth, Western Australia, sent hundreds of thousands of unsolicited emails to individuals ans organisations in New Zealand in 2010. The emails were promoting his company, Business Seminars NZ.

After more than 50 complaints from recipients who said they had no business contact with Mansfield’s company and had continued receiving messages even after unsubscribing from them, the Department of Internal Affairs decided to take legal action against Mansfield under the Unsolicited Electronic Messages Act.

High Court Justice Edwin Wylie imposed a fine of $95,000 and awarded costs of more than $8000 against Mansfield in August 2013.

This wasn’t the first time Mansfield has been fined for spamming.

In 2006, Mansfield and his Perth-based company Clarity1 Pty Ltd were fined a total of A$5.5 million in the Australian Federal Court for sending 70 million spam emails to about 5 million recipients between 2004 and 2006.

To read more about this story, click here.

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Posted in computer, E-mail & the internet, email, emails, New Zealand, new zealand business, online messaging | No Comments »

Email turns 40

Wednesday, January 4th, 2012

It’s been 40 years (and a week or two) since email as we know it was invented.

Here’s  a brief extract on the history of email taken from stuff.co.nz:

“Internal messaging systems have existed since the 1960s but in 1971 Tomlinson was helping build ARPANET for the US Department of Defence and laying the foundations of the modern internet. Tomlinson needed an easy way to send electronic messages between the various computers hooked up to ARPANET. He chose @ – generally referred to as the ”at” symbol – to designate that a message was intended for a specific user ”at” a specific organisation. The email protocol continued to develop but, for the next 20 years, it was restricted to academic and military use.

The internet was opened up for commercial use in the 1990s and email went mainstream.”

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