[LINK] Aust Post questionnaire

[Greg Taylor]

At 07:01 PM 09/02/03 +1100, Josh Rowe wrote:
>...
>Australia Post was ranked 1st in the 2001 good reputation index and 2nd
>in 2002.

Putting aside the fact that this index is decided by merely 22 
"community-based stakeholder and expert organisations" I don't see the 
relevance to the current issue.

Australia Post has abused its mail delivery monopoly to send a massively 
privacy-intrusive survey to presumably millions of Australians. I guess 
they would have got a really good postage deal.

Australia Post has further abused its position to mislead recipients into 
believing that the survey is being done under government authority.

The fact is that Australia Post is in the junkmail promotion business 
through its direct marketing arm Geospend:
http://www.auspost.com.au/geospend/index.html
"Geospend offers consumer data, profiling and analysis services to 
businesses across Australia."

The business model is apparently to increase Australia Post's flagging mail 
revenues by acquiring detailed consumer information and selling the mailing 
lists to other businesses.  You can hardly blame Australia Post for looking 
for ways to increase revenue, but who actually benefits?  The poor old 
consumer who is swamped daily with junkmail advertising certainly isn't.

Geospend claims to comply with the Privacy Act, but how did they acquire 
the list of names to spam for this year's survey?  Did the recipients 
consent to receive it?  Is this survey eligible for the "once off" direct 
marketing exception in the National Privacy Principles?

I would suggest that anyone who objects to receiving this scandalous survey 
should lodge a complaint with the Privacy Commissioner:
    www.privacy.gov.au

>Privacy Statement
>http://post.com.au/privacy/

A waste of space.

>Josh (a proud employee)

In respect of this survey there is nothing to be proud of.

Greg