[11831] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Re: Mr. Green Card makes the Times
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Russell Nelson)
Thu Apr 21 16:27:59 1994
Date: Thu, 21 Apr 94 08:30 EDT
From: nelson@crynwr.com (Russell Nelson)
To: issued@idi.net
Cc: koreth@hyperion.com, com-priv@psi.com
In-Reply-To: <Pine.3.85.9404201604.C9907-0100000@idi.net> (issued@idi.net)
From: issued@idi.net
Date: Wed, 20 Apr 1994 16:58:05 -0400 (EDT)
On Wed, 20 Apr 1994, Steven Grimm wrote:
> What would happen if a bunch of site owners got together and billed that
> law firm for the disk space and bandwidth/phone time eaten by the ad?
> Getting a few thousand bills for two cents each might dissuade them from
> trying it again.
And then would we will all send bills to people whose postings we
disagree with on com-priv? After all they are taking up bandwidth and
phone time! (satire intended)
But people subscribe to com-priv because they *want* the discussion.
And it's *discussion* they want, so they won't be surprised if they
disagree with some of the positions. What if someone decided to use
com-priv for advertising purposes, sending their ad to the list once a
day? People advertise in the newspaper once a day, why not on
com-priv?? It's wrong because it's not discussion.
Lookit -- this whole Green Card thing is about private property, not
advertisements. Some real estate owners allow people to transit their
land to get to landlocked public property (e.g. to see the pretty
falls). They do this with the expectation that people will respect
their privacy and their property. When that doesn't happen, they take
action, usually to post no-trespassing notices.
Similarly, Usenet site owners make their property available to people
under certain conditions. And one of them is the expectation that
people will respect certain conventions, e.g. that the topic of a
posting match the groups it's posted in. Canter and Siegel should
get the same treatment as any other vandal -- maybe a public flogging
is in order? And that's what they've gotten so far -- the Usenet
equivalent of a public flogging.
-russ <nelson@crynwr.com> ftp.msen.com:pub/vendor/crynwr/crynwr.wav
Crynwr Software | Crynwr Software sells packet driver support | ask4 PGP key
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