[12318] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
C&S Customer Boycott
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Mike Bauer)
Mon May 16 01:54:20 1994
Date: Sun, 15 May 94 11:57:23 EDT
From: bauer@tig.com (Mike Bauer)
To: tenney@netcom.com
Cc: jim.demmers@oit.gatech.edu, com-priv@psi.com
In-Reply-To: Glenn S. Tenney's message of Sun, 15 May 1994 00:40:31 -0800 <199405150739.AAA15636@netcom.com>
i writes...
>>I think a boycott can work but only if handled responsibly.
>
Glenn Tenney writes...
>This whole idea of a boycott is... well... unrealistic at best. It flat
>out has no chance of doing anything except waste bandwidth discussing it.
My God, waste bandwidth on com-priv? Perish the thought. Where was my
head? :)
>If a mass advertiser gets 1 or 2 % hits, they're doing great. If there
>were a boycott, I doubt it will be 99.9%. Ergo it can't work.
>
Well, can't argue with that math. I may as well pack it in. I hear
the Gap is hiring. :)
>Now, if there were a boycott of C&S' Internet Service Provider, that might
>have an effect... but I'm clearly NOT suggesting such a thing.
>
Well, a range of responses have been either tried or considered for this.
People have mail, phone, and fax bombed them. They're threatening to
sue for harassment and would probably win. Their service provider
gets slammed on both sides with its short-term business suffering from
the mail bomb fallouts and their long-term business threatened with
lawsuits for denial of service or exposure to risk from added
responsiblity by losing common carrier protection so they and the
other providers are paralyzed. A market-based response relying on
the sanctity of good will keeping legitimite concerns from using this
venue won't get 100% coverage. And I'm not Cesear Chavez and this
ain't about growing grapes so that's going nowhere.
The message I get is that the only thing we can rely upon are
sophisticated email filters (which of course every idiot knows how to
install or whip up a perl script to do). Cool. Saved by technology
again. We can all relax. Let's get on with the real issues then. Is
the EFF really in a conspiracy with the military/industrial complex and
MCI to develop low-cost Clipper-based access to the Superinformation
highway so they can monitor the welfare state for fun and profit?
>---
>Glenn Tenney
>tenney@netcom.com Amateur radio: AA6ER
>(415) 574-3420 Fax: (415) 574-0546
>
___________________________________________________________________________
Michael Bauer
President
The Internet Group
245 Lehigh Avenue
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Email: bauer@tig.com
URL: http://tig.com/
"Yeah, yeah, it's just me and a couple of other guys right now, OK?"
