>I have always been a little skeptical of those of us who >feel that all advertising is bad. I think that if I use >a list to ask for information to relay to a library client >I am using the list to further my economic interest. My job >and livelihood depends on my using the Internet to a fair >degree. This is well and good, for several reasons: 1) You've taken the time to find a proper forum, where such initiatives are (within reason) welcome. 2) There's a difference between finding information for a client (I do that all the time; my clients are professors and students) and arbitrarily ad- vertising one's service. I have no problem with most such uses of online forums. 3) There's a difference between addressing a notice to a list (even an inappropriate list) and mass mailing to a collection of email addresses. I shudder to think what will happen when some ad- vertiser discovers this campus' online directory. 4) There's already been one incident in the Unix world. When entering the UUCP universe, each site is supposed to submit a "map entry;" this entry includes the "real world" address for the site admin. A vendor recently collected up all these addresses and sent out a mass mailing. The reaction to that mailing (and the means by which the addresses were secured) would be instruc- tive for *any* firm considering Internet advertising. I'm concerned about the folks who will, inevitably, apply the precepts of junk mail and "junk fax" to electronic forums. I've fought for months with a single company that insisted on sending me 2- to 10-page faxes every other month; I pay for my fax transmissions, and I have no desired to received unsolicited information. As a result, I have ensured that no one in this domain (engr.uky.edu) will be purchasing from that firm. >There are commercial companies that pay a fee to be a part >of the Internet. Why should they not be a part of this >enterprise. I have this gut feeling that businesses also >pay taxes, some of which are used to subsidise the costs >of the Internet. Sure, there have been such subsidies; most of them are in various stages of disappearance. >Perhaps we can give it a little more thought. If people want to create lists for advertisements or distribute them through lists which accept them, I have no problem with that. I have *big* problems with those compaines that will, inevitably, see BITNET/Internet as a high-end demographic group and start the junk mail, filling our mail spools with tripe. --Wes