Internal Affairs takes action against spammer

22/05/2012

The Department of Internal Affairs’ Anti-Spam Compliance Unit is taking legal action against an alleged spammer.

The Department has lodged a statement of claim in the High Court in Auckland alleging breaches under the Unsolicited Electronic Messages Act 2007 by Wayne Robert Mansfield of Perth, Western Australia.

The court application alleges that, after the enactment of the Unsolicited Electronic Messages Act in September 2007 until at least September 2010, Mr Mansfield used a number of lists of email addresses to promote business and marketing seminars he was holding in New Zealand.

It is alleged that the emails were unsolicited commercial electronic messages sent for the purpose of advertising certain business and marketing seminars. They were also aimed at inviting the recipients to buy tickets to Mr Mansfield’s business and marketing seminars.

In its statement of claim the Department alleges the emails were sent to email addresses that ended in .nz, and were sent from an email address with the .co.nz suffix which was registered to Mr Mansfield or his agent. It also alleges the computers, servers or devices used to access the emails were located in New Zealand as were the people who received the emails. The recipients had not consented to receiving the emails from the lists used by Mr Mansfield.

Under the Unsolicited Electronic Messages Act 2007 it is illegal to send unsolicited, commercial emails. The maximum fine for an individual for breaches of the Act is $200,000.

Information about the Department’s compliance activities can be found at Enforcement Action.

Media contact:

Jo Watt, Senior Communications Adviser, Department of Internal Affairs
Ph 04 495 9382; cell 027 221 3665.