Gay’s name too ‘inappropriate’ for Telecom NZ

Alex Zaharov-Reutt
Monday, 30 April 2007 13:39

Your IT - Home IT

In what appears to be a highly embarrassing episode for Telecom NZ, a customer whose first name is ‘Gay’ has had trouble emailing Telecom NZ because their email system filters out the word ‘gay’.

Gay Hamilton, from the New Zealand town of Nelson, has been suffering email problems with Telecom NZ because the email system rejects words such as ‘gay’ and ‘heterosexual’.

First reported by the New Zealand Herald, Ms Hamilton first discovered the problem when enquiring, via email, about Telecom NZ’s broadband ISP known as ‘Xtra’. According to the NZ Herald, Hamilton received an automated response that suggested her email was “inappropriate for business-like communication”.

According to TV NZ, Hamilton thought the whole thing was “a bit silly, childish, a bit schoolyardish” and wondered if customers with the name ‘Dick’ receive the same harsh email treatment. By co-incidence, Gay happens to be gay, and wondered about the resources that Telecom NZ had put into deciding the word ‘gay’ was offensive.

Hamilton told the NZ Herald that: “If they do have to put content filters on, then maybe they should ensure that it only gets genuinely abusive words”.

The NZ Herald reported Telecom NZ PR spokesperson Lenska Papich as saying that: “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”.

Hamilton has reportedly forgiven the company.