May be you should read this from Australia Home Affairs website about ETA

https://www.eta.homeaffairs.gov.au/ETAS3/etas

At writing, there are only 7 countries and one region (HKSAR) are eligible to use the ETA program which is a form of tourist visa but exempt the applicant from the more restrictive, more lengthy process of a Visitor Visa.

An eligible applicant can only apply ETA from outside Australia.

ETA itself is FREE for every individual applicant regardless eligible Nationality. However, Australia government charges AUD20 "Service Fee" when an individual applies directly with the government's website.

The advantage to apply directly as an individual on the Australia government website, is that you get an account, that allows you to use VEVO system

https://immi.homeaffairs.gov.au/visa...ditions-online

So you can check the status of your ETA, as well as your location status (Onshore or Offshore).

Australia government does not charge the AUD20 if the individual applies ETA via a Travel Agent or Airline.
Years ago, we had our ETAs handled by United Airlines phone agent when we called in on our itinerary involved Australia.

The disadvantage is, the applicant may not know other reference such as the Visa Grant Number or the Transaction Number - those would show on the confirmation email with the ETA as a separately sent PDF file. You may only receive the PDF file but not the confirmation email thus dont have those reference numbers in the case you need it (such as in our case.)

Finally I have enough reasons to believe, ivisa handles the system used by Travel Agents / Airlines as well as the ETA application system on the Home Affairs own website (outsourced by the Australia government of course)

The ONLY place i have submitted an inquiry of my scenario is on this Contact Us page.

https://www.eta.homeaffairs.gov.au/E...ctUs?locale=en

NOTE - The field of Reference is NOT required. Therefore I was able to submit my question.

The reply I got, as you all see, is a forward inquiry from ivisa that some think it is questionable. In all reality, ivisa is the company runs the Australia Home Affairs ETA processing site.

You can make your own guess but I am convinced, ivisa runs the ETA application processing system.