Dangers of Advertising

[Eloise M. Boyle]

Dear SEELANGers,

The current discussion of advertising on the net goes well beyond the
boundaries of our newsgroup, and a few things about internet etiquette
ought to be borne in mind.  Please note that my comments are NOT directed
as personal criticism of Athol Yates.

Devin Browne touched upon a couple of points in his posting.  Internet
etiquette is designed so that the *user* is always in control.  You can be
commercial on the net as long as you are well-behaved and quiet about it.
The most common courtesy these days if you are advertising a product is to
refer users to a home page where they can get more information.
Unsolicited advertisement is verboten on the internet, but within the
context of an *already ongoing* discussion, reference to certain texts and
products is OK.  These "behavior rules" are set forth to help keep the
Internet manageable, to help maintain the academic integrity of certain
lists, and because the internet gurus decided long ago to fight
commercialization of the internet .

Letting unsolicited advertising onto user groups is opening yourself to a
potential nightmare (anyone remember the "fax attacks" from the days when
personal fax machines became more widespread?): is SEELANGS prepared to
make judgements about which companies are "suitable" for us and which are
not?  Are we willing to allow publishers in and keep other firms out?  Once
you let unsolicited advertisements into your group you absolutely cannot
stem the tide.

The "delete" button question:  believing you can just delete those unwanted
messages you receive is shortsighted and naive.  From July 1994 to July
1995 the number of registered hosts on the internet went from 3.2 million
to 6.6 million -- and that is not a count of actual *users* of those
machines.  The estimate is that by the end of the century 120 million
machines will be connected to the internet. (source: Internet World, Nov.
95)

Remember, with 10-30 million people on the net, if you leave your newsgroup
open to advertising you'll have literally hundreds of unwanted messages out
there *every day* (if you don't believe firms are dying to use the internet
for commercial gain, ask your provider for evidence).  One moderator would
spend *100%* of his/her time keeping up with such a mountain of mail.
Deleting these messages would be a waste of your time, your connection
time.  Receiving them is a waste of your internet provider's disk space.

Perhaps captialism will inevitably take over the net, but unsolicited
advertising on the internet is currently regulated by gentlemen's agreement
for very good reasons.  We here at SEELANGS would do well to keep these
issues in mind.

Eloise M. Boyle
boyle at accessone.com