Murph Sewall's forward on Trojan Horse Marketing prompts this query:
 
Currently I am researching a paper on various ways that the Internet
might be exploited--in a mass way, by collective interests--toward
individual ends:  advertising, politicking, marketing, persuading,
defaming, etc. (Murph's Trojan Horse is one good example).
 
Note that my emphasis is on mass attempts and collective activities--I am
not interested in individual criminals or small criminal groups, nor in
activities that affect only individuals or relatively few people (these
are also worthy topics, but not mine, at least not at the moment).
Possible subjects of interest include corporations, advertisers,
marketers, politicians and political groups, religious groups and
charities, and organized efforts to mobilize behavior of all kinds.
 
My request:  That you send me any examples (like Murph's) of actual
activity on the Net that might fall within the domain of my paper, or of
any future means that you experts might be able to foresee.  After
response on the latter dies out, I'll post my own predictions, because I
will value your reactions.
 
Under the circumstances, you have every reason to wonder who I am, and my
intentions.  I am a tenured professor at the University of Southern
California; currently I own the listserv aapor50 (for scholars of public
opinion) at vm.usc.edu; I am subscribed to lstown-l.  My intentions
are much like Murph's:  to alert citizens of the Net about current
duplicities, and to add to discourse about likely future ones.  In doing
so, I'm afraid I might also give a few scoundrels new ideas, but I can't
imagine we can be much ahead of most of them.  Education would seem the
better defense.
 
So, I welcome whatever help you might be willing to provide, either to me
personally or here on lstown.  For my part, I promise to keep you posted
on what I learn, from you and others, and on my larger project as well.
 
Thanks for your help.
 
                                        -- Jim Beniger
 
 
P.S.  Murph's message can serve as a good example of exactly what I am
looking for in my research:
 
On Wed, 24 Aug 1994, Murph Sewall wrote:
 
> While thinking about your previous missive, this arrived.
>
> Humans are awful damn clever.
>
> ----------------------------Original message----------------------------
> fyi,
> jr
> ----------------------------Original message----------------------------
> Here's a new concept to begin watching for (I must admit, it IS cleverer
> than Canter&Siegel).
>
> Pitchman joins list under two user ids, the second (later) one is a "stooge
> account" (AOL, Compuserve, whereever) and posts a question in the form of:
>
> Does anyone have an email address for Widgets&Thingamabobs?
>
> Then Pitchman answers:
>
> The email address is [log in to unmask] and they also have a web and gopher
> server at www-gopher.Widgets.Com.  Check out the files: wonder-new-product.
> If you can't do ftp/gopher/Mosaic, I'll be happy to email a copy to you...
>
> [Advertising by the back door--at least to selected lists/newgroups]
>
> /s Murphy A. Sewall <[log in to unmask]> (203) 486-2489 voice
>    Professor of Marketing                          (203) 486-5246 fax
>