[9477] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Re: Inmac, junk mail, and the death of the net...
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Peter Deutsch)
Thu Jan 6 17:59:09 1994
From: Peter Deutsch <peterd@bunyip.com>
Date: Thu, 6 Jan 1994 17:47:55 -0500
In-Reply-To: Joe Ilacqua's message as of Jan 6, 22:04
To: spike@coke.std.com (Joe Ilacqua), com-priv@psi.com
[ Joe Ilacqua wrote: ]
>
> OK, Inmac bought the list (for $10K) from a company called
> List Services in Connecticut, (203) 791-4443. I spoke to Steve Weis.
> They are brokering the list for a client and will not divulge who that
> client is without a good reason. They (List Services) know what
> Internet is, they know that the client screwed up by using public
> access sites in the list, and they believe that it doesn't violate any
> network policy (I don't think it does ethier). They have removed the
> public access sites from the list and will continue to sell it. The
> client plans to continue building lists in this manner.
Hmmm. Sometimes you see something and just _know_ it's a
bad idea, although you might not yet have fully worked out
the reasons why. This certainly seems to me to strike me
as such a case and I expect a goodly number of people who
find their names have made it onto such lists are going to
be squealing like stuck pigs in the very near future.
As I work this out in my head some of the reasons why it
seems to be a bad idea come to mind. First, Internet users
tend to be quite sensitized to issues of privacy and
security and as a group will resent having their names
"auto-culled" onto lists in such a manner. In fact, I
would suspect that there is a relationship between how
users feel about being on such a list and how they will
feel towards any company that uses such lists to send them
marketing info.
Thus, although Inmac may not have done the culling
themselves, a fair number of people are probably cursing
their name right now. Since the aim of marketing is _not_
in general to make potential customers curse your name,
this is probably a "Bad Idea (tm)" for commercial people
trying to build goodwill, ranking right up there with
using beef from the Amazon rainforest or hardwood from the
last of the Indonesian stands of teak.
Next, although I'm not sure exactly how related this is,
there are certainly laws in Europe that forbid the
creation of certain kinds of user databases without
authorization. If any of the names on those lists come
from European sites (not always obvious, and perhaps not
being screened for) then customers for this list just
might be liable if they have operations in Europe and thus
a presence for European governments to go after. This is
probably not a real issue for someone like Inmac, but might
or might not come back to bite some people if there are
any cranky names on the list who want to see if there's
some way to fight back.
I think the biggest issue here is in the perceived loss of
trust and the ensuing ill-will that's going to engender as
word gets out on how that particular list was generated (I
also suspect we're going to hear that this activity has
been going on for a while and it took a dumb mistake to
make an issue out of it). As one datapoint, as a
businessman I certainly wouldn't touch such a list with a
barge pole.
I think that if enough people make it very clear to users
of such lists that they harms sales, not increase them,
there is some expectation that their use will be
curtailed. If the final analysis is that some people
complain to Internet mailing lists but sales increase when
they're used, their use will grow. So, those who feel
really strongly about this issue should realize right now
that postings to comp-priv are going to be _far_ less
productive than letters to Inmac and others who use this
list brokers' services.
- peterd
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