An Australian government Web site has been spamming people multiple times, despite the site's privay policy stating it won't use e-mail addresses without the owner's consent.

A reader notified ZDNet Australia about the offending e-mail. "Spam annoys me at the best of times - but this one takes the cake. I received four copies of the included e-mail from an Australian Government site."

The e-mails were sent by The Source, a government Web site targeting young people, and promoted a competition for free Spiderman movie tickets.

The Source site links to the Department of Family and Community Services Privacy Policy , which states: "We will only record your e-mail address if you send us a message. It will only be used for the purpose for which you have provided it and will not be added to a mailing list. We will not use your e-mail address for any other purpose, and will not disclose it, without your consent."

"I have never consented to them using my e-mail address in a mailing list, and to my knowledge, have never ever sent them an e-mail for them to garnish my address from," said the disgruntled reader.

The editor of The Source, Adam Valvasori, admitted the mistake, saying he had received e-mail complaints and could understand why people were upset.

-I meant to just send to everyone once, but the database didn't remove multiple entries," he said. According to Valvasori, the e-mail addresses were from a competition ran during National Youth Week. The Source thought people would be interested because of the similarity of the Web site.

-It was a similar competition so we thought we'd e-mail them, but because of the stuff-up people have been getting pissed off," said Valvasori. -It was an oversight, and it won't happen again."

Copyright © 2009 CBS Interactive, a CBS Company. All Rights Reserved.
ZDNET is a registered service mark of CBS Interactive. ZDNET Logo is a service mark of CBS Interactive.