[2526] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Re: Advertising
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Ken Laws)
Fri Mar 13 15:33:34 1992
Date: Fri 13 Mar 92 12:13:47-PST
From: Ken Laws <LAWS@ai.sri.com>
To: com-priv@psi.com
> From: SEAN@SDG.DRA.COM (Sean Donelan)
> Remember, cheap network mail works in both directions. If the
> network culture really disliked junk mail, I don't think a smart
> advertiser would make the same mistake twice.
The person making marketing decisions is seldom the same as the
clerk hired to process incoming mail. Suppose that the marketing
chief receives the following report: "We sent 1,000,000 net ads
last week, at a cost of $1,000. Response so far has been 1,000
orders, for a gross profit of $50,000. Ten percent of these orders
were from new customers, representing an expected lifetime value
to our company of $500,000. There was also the usual number of
complaints." Now, how big must "the usual number" be before this
marketer decides to quit the campaign?
As for cheap mail working in both directions, I'm not sure this is
true. Advertisers willing to spend $1M per week (as many obviously
are) will undoubtedly get bulk discounts. Individual replies may
cost a hundred times as much.
> From: jqj@phloem.uoregon.edu (JQ Johnson)
> ... make it illegal (and subject to moderately high penalties) for
> information providers to deliver their materials to people who have
> said "no thanks." ... This sort of mechanism does not apply to
> "broadcast" media such as USEnet news; presumably the FCC should
> regulate the advertising content of USEnet news just as it does radio
> and television.
So instead of an AUP, we should have laws and regulations? Perhaps
what is galling FARNET members (and others) is not that there is an
AUP, but that it does not apply to all networks equally. Or perhaps
it's just that NSF's commercial-use policy is too restrictive. Be
careful about throwing out the baby with the bath water, though. Some
form of AUP is necessary, or will be once the customer and commercial
enrollments grow and directories become available. (House directories
are being compiled even now, and companies will be happy to sell them
on the open market. I'm willing to sell mine, in fact.)
I do agree about allowing people to take their names off mailing lists.
It should be a legal requirement that each company, or perhaps each
product line, should have such an exclusion list. Industry-wide or
network-wide exclusion lists should also be available, but I doubt
that a legal mandate is necessary.
When such screens are implemented, I hope it will be possible for me
to eliminate cosmetics ads without also eliminating AI ads. Even the
latter may be overwhelming, though, so I might choose to eliminate all
ads and then subscribe to a filtered news service that carries press
releases.
> From: drw@BOURBAKI.MIT.EDU
> It may already be an offence -- wire fraud. (In the US, anyway. I
> don't know about the law in other countries, but I suspect that it's
> similar on this point.) Someone once explained to me that that's why
> mailers don't write "Information you requested" on unsolicited mail --
> it would be mail fraud, which is a severe crime.
Postal inspectors do have clout, although many of their regulations
are routinely ignored. The Post Office's main threat on bulk mailings
is either refusal to deliver or assessment of First Class charges,
neither of which is particularly fearsome.
The group with real clout appears to be the FTC, at least for interstate
advertising. If network sponsors eliminate all AUPs, agencies such as
the FTC and FCC may begin to police your networks and set your policies.
-- Ken
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