It is not the first time and probably not the last time either that an
overzealous free e-mail list provider employee misuses L-Soft
community resources like CataList to solicit L-Soft customers.
Thus far these incidents have always been resolved promptly
and amicably. I expect that this latest round will be no different.
These solicitations are mostly ineffective anyway, and appear
(judging from the amount of e-mail I got about this myself) to
result in a large number of e-mail complaints to the solicitor and/or
his manager. This is probably the most effective way to deal with
this, ie make it clear to the solicitor that they just made a terrible
impression and lost any opportunity of getting your list.

Our PR department has been clamouring for an analysis release
on free e-mail list providers, so we are going to release one soon.
The press are doing what they can, but this is a narrow niche industry
and there are a number of aspects that are just not obvious unless you
work in a similar enough industry, such as for-pay list hosting. If you
move out of the mailing list industry, you will be dealing with people
who do not understand the niche, and if you ask a direct competitor
you will get a sales pitch. Companies like L-Soft on the other hand
could not care less which free e-mail list company wins the race, at
least not to any significant extent, it makes no difference in the big
picture. I always thought eGroups had the best chances, although
I was surprised that they could close the deal with ONElist, and still
wonder if it will work in practice.

  Eric