Michael Malone wrote:
> 
> An open letter to Melbourne IT,
> 
> Thank you for sending your reminder out on Christmas Eve,
> the last business day before you close until the New Year.

Michael - this reminder gave three months' notice, not three weeks'
notice, of the date for payment of the invoice.   Given the spamming of
the network on 20 December, we actually thought we were being
considerate in postponing our mail-out four more days, and by sending an
advance notice of the mail-out to the relevant mailing lists. 

> Putting an incorrect return address in was also a
> wonderful way of avoiding any increase in support load
> due to any misguided attempts to respond. 

Putting your sarcasm to one side, thank you for drawing our attention to
the typo in the return address, where the letter "r" was omitted
accidentally from 'MelbourneIT'. Your early warning enabled my
colleagues to provide a quick solution, so that any return messages can
reach us and be processed.

> ...
> 
> We are currently planning to hold all payments for existing
> domains until after the establishment of a competitor within
> COM.AU has been further investigated. We have sought legal
> advice about Melbourne IT's right to remove our domain if we
> fail to pay, and our advice is that it would be unconscionable
> conduct and open MIT to considerable recourse. We are advising
> all clients to withhold payment on the three hundred odd COM.AU
> domains connected through us.
> 
I suggest that you get better legal advice. 

> You will also find that use of an incorrect return address
> has just removed any chance of you closing peoples' domains
> without considerable risk. The resultant confusion will not
> be resolved by simply sending another one.
> 
In actual fact the message in question was advising end clients of what
action to take, and did not require the recipient to respond! However,
as noted above, we have provided a technical solution so that replies to
the mistyped address can now reach us. 

> Of course, we will continue to pay MIT for new registrations
> and trust that this response will not damage our relationship
> with MIT, especially given the utter incompetance displayed
> by connect.com.au in processing net.au (or failing to process)
> delegations since December the first.
> 
I note that not even you are immune from typing errors, e.g.
"incompetance" above. Nobody's perfect - not even the utterly competent! 

> Enjoy your Christmas. I wish all COM.AU holders a happier
> new year.
> 
> Regards
> 
> Michael Malone
> 
And you too, Michael; and best of luck in avoiding the occasional
mistake when you are running the biz.au commercial DNA service. 

P.S. As a peripheral but important request, to you and other mailing
list correspondents, especially cyber-journalists:  please do not
abbreviate Melbourne IT as 'MIT' - we do not wish to be seen, even
indirectly by acquiescence, to be passing ourselves off as the
celebrated Institute at Massachusetts. I know no harm is intended by the
abbreviation, but we're operating in a global industry, folks.

Regards  
PG
-- 
Professor Peter Gerrand
CEO, Melbourne IT