Online advertising for Mt Smart Stadium

Alex Harris made this Official Information Act request to Auckland City Council

The request was successful.

From: Alex Harris

26 June 2012

Dear Auckland City Council,

According to Wikipedia, you are the owners of Mt Smart Stadium.
Recently the stadium appears to have begun an online advertising
campaign, which has resulted in forum spam in at least one NZ-based
discussion forum. I would like to request the following information
under the LGOIMA:

* which company or companies have been hired to advertise Mt Smart
Stadium online
* how much are they being paid
* what instructions were they given, and what advertising methods
were they told to use
* all documents, advice and communications regarding this
advertising contract

I would prefer to receive an electronic response. Queries about
this request will be automatically forwarded to me by the
fyi.org.nz website.

With regards to s12 of the OIA, I am an NZ citizen and in NZ.

Yours faithfully,

Alex Harris

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Auckland City Council

26 June 2012

 

Thank you for contacting Auckland Council.

 

Your email has been referred to a member of our customer services team,
who will respond to you directly or refer your query to the appropriate
person within three working days.

 

If you have an urgent enquiry, please phone our call centre directly on 09
301 0101. The Auckland Council call centre is open 24 hours a day, 7 days
a week, including public holidays.

 

Please do not respond to this email as this is an automated message.

Kind regards

 
Customer Services
Auckland Council

[1]www.aucklandcouncil.govt.nz

References

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1. http://www.aucklandcouncil.govt.nz/

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Auckland City Council

26 June 2012

 

Dear Alex,

 

Thank you for contacting us us.

I have forwarded your request on to our official information team. You can
expect an initial response from them within five working days.

Please feel free to contact us at [1][email address].nz if
you have any further queries.

 

Nāku noa nā | Regards

Michael Higgins
Written Communications Team
Auckland Council
(09) 301 0101

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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From: Stephens, James

1 July 2012

Attachment Ack 9000117172 Alex Harris Mount Smart Stadium Adv.pdf
0K Download View as HTML

Dear Mr Harris,

Please find attached formal acknowledgement of your request for information pursuant to the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act 1987.

Regards,

James Stephens
Public Information Advisor
Electoral Office/Public Information Unit
[Auckland Council]

CAUTION: This email message and any attachments contain information that may be confidential and may be LEGALLY PRIVILEGED. If you are not the intended recipient, any use, disclosure or copying of this message or attachments is strictly prohibited. If you have received this email message in error please notify us immediately and erase all copies of the message and attachments. We do not accept responsibility for any viruses or similar carried with our email, or any effects our email may have on the recipient computer system or network. Any views expressed in this email may be those of the individual sender and may not necessarily reflect the views of Council.

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From: Maria Milina

15 July 2012

Attachment SRFAprinter12071606140.pdf
94K Download View as HTML

Dear Mr Harris,

 

Please find attached response to your LGOIMA request.

 

Kind regards,

Maria

 

 

Maria Milina | Executive Assistant to Chief Executive Officer
Regional Facilities Auckland
Office 09 307 6287 | [mobile number]
Level 4 | Aotea Centre | 50 Mayoral Drive | Auckland 1010
Private Bag 92340 | Victoria Street West | Auckland 1142

 

CAUTION: This email message and any attachments contain information that
may be confidential and may be legally privileged. If you are not the
intended recipient, any use, disclosure or copying of this message or
attachments is strictly prohibited. If you have received this email
message in error, please notify us immediately and erase all copies of the
message and attachments. We do not accept responsibility for any viruses
or similar carried with our email, or any effects our email may have on
the recipient computer system or network. Any views expressed in this
email may be those of the individual sender and may not necessarily
reflect the views of Regional Facilities Auckland Limited.

 

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Ryan Paddy left an annotation (16 July 2012)

Here is an example of a spambot posting a link to the Mt Smart Stadium website on a NZ-based forum:

http://diatribe.co.nz/viewtopic.php?p=93...

You can see more examples of this phrase being boosted on the following pages:

http://bookmarkfall.com/story.php?title=...
http://tagza.com/Entertainment/venues_fo...
http://www.rebookmarks.com/venues-for-hi...

These are not the search directories mentioned in the OIA response. They appear to be cheap and nasty link-boosting sites.

Those links suggest that someone working on behalf of Mt Smart Stadium has attempted to boost the stadiums' search engine ranking for the search phrase "venues for hire auckland". The same phrase that the spambot used.

It appears to be working, as Mt Smart Stadium currently occupies the top two search result places on Google for that phrase when searching from Auckland.

This is just speculation, but I wonder if some of those link sites may fire off spambots on your behalf when you list with them. It may be advisable to stick to using more reputable web directories.

Ryan

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Ryan Paddy left an annotation (18 July 2012)

The IP address that the spambot posted to Diatribe from was 1.22.171.25. That IP resolves to India.

Alexa.com reports that tagza.com gets most of its traffic from India and is the 547th site most trafficked by people in India:

http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/tagza.com

My guess is therefore that tagza.com has deployed a spambot on behalf of Mt Smart Stadium. That really is a shot in the dark though.

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