Melbourne IT breaches registrar agreement - News - Business

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This story was printed from ZDNet Australia.
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Melbourne IT breaches registrar agreement

By Patrick Gray, 0
March 31, 2003
URL: http://www.zdnet.com.au/news/business/soa/Melbourne-IT-breaches-registrar-agreement/0,139023166,120273296,00.htm

The .au Domain Administration (auDA) has censured Melbourne IT over a promotional letter sent to 1,500 domain name owners in February.

Melbourne IT had offered to transfer the owners' existing domain name registrations to the company, and found itself in hot water after it mined the AusRegistry database to find out who the recipients' domain name were administered through. But that wasn't all it did wrong, according to auDA.

"In addition, Melbourne IT used some envelopes marked 'Important Account Information'. This was incorrect as the mailout [sic] was a promotional letter which did not contain account information," auDA said.

Melbourne IT fully acknowledged that it was to blame. "We made a mistake, and have offered our sincere apologies...we didn't seek to take advantage of anyone," Melbourne IT spokesperson Tom Valenta told ZDNet Australia .

Valenta said that there was no one to blame but the senior management. "The buck stops with management, we accept that...all I can say is the procedures we had in place were not followed," he said.

Melbourne IT is currently reviewing its internal procedures, and have not ruled out providing more in-depth training to its employees.

"If we need to do additional training... then that's what will happen," Valenta said.

Chief policy officer with auDA, Jo Lim, said it takes breaches seriously because "there's so much suspicion attached to letters from domain name registrars".

Melbourne IT has, on the whole, been fairly well behaved, according to Lim.

"This is the first time we've had to investigate a complaint and take action against them," she told ZDNet Australia .

Earlier this month, Melbourne IT was discovered faxing domain name registry keys and passwords to its client base without customers' knowledge or permission. However, no action was taken against the company.