Perth man faces spam action in NZ

The New Zealand Department of Internal Affairs has lodged a High Court case against Perth businessman Wayne Mansfield over an alleged email spam operation.

The department accuses Mansfield of using a number of email address lists to promote business and marketing seminars in New Zealand.

The department alleges the unsolicited emails were sent to NZ addresses from a .co.nz domain registered to Mansfield or his agents, and that the servers and computers used to access the messages were located in New Zealand.

Mansfield faces a maximum fine of NZ$200,000 under the Unsolicited Electronic Messages Act 2007 if found guilty, the department said.

He has 25 working days to respond to the statement of claim. No date for a hearing has been set.

iTnews contacted Mansfield via email but didn’t receive a response.

Details of the statement of claim were also being sought at the time of publication.

A department spokeswoman confirmed it is the same Mansfield that was disqualified from managing corporations by the Australian Securities and Investment Commission (ASIC) in 2009.

In 2005, Mansfield's company Clarity1 was taken to court by the Australian Communications and Media Authority for sending 56 million spam emails the year before.

In October 2006, a penalty of $4.5 million was imposed on Clarity1 with another million dollars on Mansfield himself.