Telecom New Zealand bounces gay e-mail

April 29, 2007

Telecom New Zealand has apologised to Gay Hamilton after her e-mail was bounced because it contained the word gay eight times. The automatic reply Ms Hamilton received stated that the e-mail was not suited for "business-like communication".

Website designer and lesbian, Gay Hamilton had sent the largest public company in New Zealand a message to their help desk via e-mail, asking if she was able to receive their broadband services in her Nelson suburb.

Lenska Papich, spokesperson for Telecom, has said that e-mails are usually only monitored internally, and the words are blocked to help reduce harassment cases by threatening disciplinary action. "Our systems internally detect a number of words, including both the words gay and heterosexual, that could be deemed as inappropriate for use at work." Telecom refused to list the other words that are blocked.

Ms Hamilton has said that she is worried about the amount of time and effort Telecom must have put into deciding that gay was an inappropriate word in e-mail communication. "If they do have to put content filters on, then maybe they should ensure that it only gets genuinely abusive words."

Ms Hamilton has been apologised to by Lenska Papich, who said that she was very good about it all.