The first launch of the Teleguide site was accompanied by a large unsolicited promotional mass-emailing to the postmasters of most NZ-registered domains. Although this mailing was done from a ClearNet account, recipients were directed to pages on the IHUG server where the Teleguide pages were first hosted.

As so often is the case - the authors of the unsolicited mass-emailing attempted to pass off their mis-behaviour by claiming it was simply "market research".

Compounding the effect of their very unprofessional abuse of email, the site's creators also "borrowed" intellectual property from other sites without permission - possibly the main reason it was allegedly pulled by IHUG.

A few weeks back, the Teleguide site resurfaced at the domain www.teleguide.co.nz promising up-to-date programme listings and information on TV programmes in NZ. Unfortunately the second attempt appeared to be dogged by "technical problems" and out of date content (as featured in Aardvark Weekly's 'I cant' believe it's true').

Someone from Teleguide signing themselves only as "Sandra" has stated "Teleguide has already admitted to the mail drop being a mistake, it still does not give IHUG the right to play God with practices that have clearly breached the Commerce Act."

Note:
Aardvark's ethics mandate that I declare a relationship with the 7am TV Pages, a site which could be seen as competing with the Teleguide site prior to its demise.

Related stories:

• ClearNet User Spams NZ domains
• ClearNet User Spams NZ domains (Update)

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