Douglas Winship <[log in to unmask]> passed on this little gem:
>
>Date: Tue, 26 Oct 93 22:14:59 EDT
>From: Strangelove Press <[log in to unmask]>
>Subject: How to Advertise on the Internet
>
>o How to gather mail addresses of Internet users for direct marketing
 
Shall we subtitle this "Earn their enmity with unsolicited mass mailings"?
 
>o Understanding the culture of the Internet
 
The subtitle here should be "and then violate it with unrequested email
advertisements."
 
>o How to create your own animated graphics for electronic
>    mail business acards
 
Geez, are they talking about multimedia?  NeXTMail?  MIME?  Uuencoded
GIFs?  This will be even better for the advertiser; not only will they
deliver stuff that most folks cannot yet read, but they'll anger admins
by filling /usr/mail (or spool space, for you IBM folks) with useless
tripe in multiple copies.
 
Quite frankly, I'm going to answer unrequested email adverts with
something like this:
 
        Your recent unsolicited electronic mail advertisement is,
        in my opinion, an inappropriate use of the mail facility;
        I find such things rude, annoying and almost unethical.
        Therefore, any future mailings from your address to any
        user in my domain will be returned to you.  In addition,
        I will be doing everything in my power to ensure that your
        firm recieves no business whatsoever from this site.  In
        addition, I will publicize this response in the hope that
        other sites will also take a dim view of your firm and its
        products.  If I have any business relationship with your
        firm at this time, I shall endeavor to terminate it imme-
        diately.
 
One quick patch of my sendmail configuration, and they'll be flooding
themselves; I have zero tolerance for this kind of nonsense.
 
I wonder how many lists are going to be adding "no advertisements"
to their charter and/or adding moderators...
 
--Wes
 
ps> I'll be dispatching a copy of these comments to [log in to unmask],
    although I doubt they will do any good.