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It must have come as a great disappointment to them therefore, to discover that one of their members (UBD was found to be selling email addresses on CDROM.

According to the story in today's online edition of IDG, DMA chief executive Keith Norris says he's emailed the UBD about the matter.

Okay now, let's get this straight.

The UBD were engaged in selling email addresses to anyone who was prepared to stump up with the necessary cash.

Those buying these email addresses were unlikely to be doing so simply out of curiosity.

In fact, the UBD's actions are so obviously pro-spam that they end up on a Spamhaus blacklist.

The UBD actually admits that it was selling the addresses and that it realised that there was potential for the abuse of the lists.

The DMA, which *claims* to be strongly opposed to unsolicited commercial email and such practices by its membership.

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But the best the DMA can do is to send an "informal email" to the offending member??

So what's the point in having an association with rules and regulations to control members activities if the only sanction offered for such a gratuitous breach of the spirit of those rules is to receive an "informal email"?

Come on Keith, the internet community has listened to the DMA's claims to be anti-spam for quite some time now.

We didn't agree with your claims that opt-out or single-opt-in were valid methods of building and maintaining a mailing list but we were prepared to sit by and wait to see how your members actually behaved.

So far we've all been very pleased that DMA members appear to have resisted the temptation to spam us -- but now you have a problem.

UBD has blatantly breached the spirit of your anti-spam rules and, although no "formal complaint" has been received -- both you and the UBD know they have stepped over the line.

So what are you going to do about it?

I don't think an "informal email" is going to cut it.

Knowing that you've had the internet equivalent of a chat over a cuppa and bikkies isn't going to come as much consolation for anyone whose address was on the lists sold by the UBD and who may end up with even higher levels of spam in their mailbox as a result.

I suggest you make an example of the UBD and prove to both the internet community and your members that this type of abuse won't be tolerated at all.

Fine them $10K and donate that money to InternetNZ's anti-spam working group perhaps?

Whatever you do, it needs to be swift, sharp and effective as a disincentive for others to follow suit. Only then will the public have any respect for your claims to be anti-spam.

And don't roll out that excuse that nobody's filed a formal complaint -- everyone *knows* what the UBD has done and that it's totally unacceptable.

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