Everybody hates spam.  It clogs up your mailbox like a blocked drainpipe.  I have had my share of spam advertising russian brides, replica watches, penis enlargers, and lists of Doctors in the United States for sale.  Hear my story about some locally generated spam in New Zealand.

Up until now this spam has all originated mainly from China and the United States.  Even before New Zealand introduced the Unsolicited Electronic Messages Act in 2007 my email box was generally free of locally generated spam.

I was surprised to receive in my email today an email from Printa NZ, a New Zealand based company offering various print options.  I did not sign up for this newsletter.  

The email included the following paragraphs:

Printa Ltd would like to ask for your permission to email you no more than once a month a special offer on one of our print, promotional or pen selections..

DO NOT CONTACT ME AGAIN:  Please go to the bottom of this page and click on unsubsribe and type in the email address that this email was sent to - You will be deleted immediately from our contact list and we would like to apologise for any inconvenience.

To clarify two very important points:

• An organisation can not send you an unsolicited email which asks permission to send you further communication

• An organisation must have your prior acceptance before sending email communications to you.  

Prior acceptance could be given by signing a document authorising the communication or by otherwise inferring consent.  For example, if you provide a business card to the organisation with your email address on it you may be providing interred consent to further emails being sent to you.  Both these situations show a prior connection between parties.

Further arrogance is shown in the email from Printa NZ in their attempt to require people to make use of an “OPT-OUT” facility to stop receiving further promotional material from them.  If you do not OPT-OUT of their email list it appears that Printa NZ thinks it is perfectly acceptable to continue barraging you with spam.  

IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO STAY ON OUR CONTACT LIST:  You need do nothing and a email will be sent out to you in a month or two letting you know our next special.

The OPT-OUT facility is a requirement under the Unsolicited Electronic Messages Act 2007 and is intended as an option for subscribers that have already authorised the communication by opting in.

I am not a lawyer and this is not to be considered legal advise.

If you would like to report receiving spam from Printa NZ or any other New Zealand based organisation, you  can report the breach to the Department of Internal Affairs via their website.

Check out the response I received from Deb at Printa NZ after the break.

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Over the next 18 months Microsoft is expected to cut anywhere between 2000 and 5000 positions in Research and Development, Legal, Human Resources, and Information Technology.  A total of 1,400 positions are due to be cut immediately.

Microsoft posted a lower than expected profit of $US4.17 billion ($NZ8 billion) in its second quarter ended December 31.

Revenue at its Windows client division fell 8% due to delayed corporate upgrades of PCs and cannibalisation of consumer notebook sales by netbooks installed with Windows XP.

Microsoft Corp’s stock fell nearly 12 percent at one point to its lowest level since 1998.

As at 30 September 2008, Microsoft employed 94,286 staff worldwide, with 56,654 based in the United States.  If 5000 jobs were to be cut this would equate to 5.3% of the total Microsoft workforce.

Microsoft employs around 150 staff in New Zealand, who are not expected to be part of the job cuts.

Source: Microsoft, National Business Review, Computerworld

The Auckland City Council has today launched a wireless broadband service, beginning with seven coverage areas where users can prepay for access by the hour, day, or week.  The service was launched mid day today.

Areas covered by today’s launch include:

• Aotea Square
• Karangahape Road
• Ponsonby
• Remuera
• Parnell
• Viaduct Basin
• Westhaven

Broadband speeds of up to 2 megabits per second are achievable across the service.

The service is currently charged at $3.00 per hour, $6.50 per day, or $30 per week.  Access to the Auckland City website is free.

The network has been developed from a partnership between Kordia, Tomizone, and the Auckland City Council.

YouTube appears to be experimenting with a new video download facility, for the first time letting viewers download and take a piece of YouTube with them.  This new capability is their latest move in the highly competitive world of online video.

It’s a limited release at this stage, with the first YouTube channel to receive this attention being the official channel of president-elect Barack Obama.

YouTube Download Facility

Video downloads are available in MPEG4 video format, allowing for some interesting options for transferring video to portable devices such as iPods, iPhones, and other video capable units.