On Mon, 6 Jun 1994 16:55:00 EDT "Gerald M. Phillips, Ph.D." <[log in to unmask]> said: >The use of names on this list for commercial purposes and sale of >software is an absolute violation of my right to privacy. The "solicitations" were for new versions of the product this list is discussing, not for a thigh cream or law firm. I will not dispute that you considered them a waste your time, but they were not off-topic, nor do I understand why you claim we have violated your privacy. I get ads from Dell on a regular basis because I bought a computer from them. Some are interesting, most are not, but I can't imagine how they could possibly violate my privacy (not unless the postman peeps through my window while delivering them, anyway). And it doesn't upset me, because it is clearly reasonable for Dell to have assumed that I might be interested in memory upgrades, software or accessories for my PC. If they sent me ads for body lotions, it would be another matter. Similarly, the reason we post L-Soft announcements to LSTOWN-L is that we assumed that LISTSERV list owners are interested in being kept informed of the kind of migration and licensing decisions their home institutes are faced with, so that, for instance, they can have a discussion on an equal footing with their postmaster, when the topic of downsizing comes up and management starts suggesting that all the lists may have to be closed by a certain date. If a significant amount of list owners would rather not receive such messages, we will exclude LSTOWN-L from future announcements with our apologies. But we have posted announcements to this list from day one, some of them quite long, and never got a single complaint. In fact, we used to get positive feedback and "keep me informed" requests. So I assume the reason for this outburst is that we have included pricing information in this latest set of announcements. The reason we did that is that the lack of dollar amounts in our previous announcements was the single largest complaint from our customers. After each major announcement, we would receive hundreds of requests for the "critical missing piece of information". Customers urged us to compile a condensed price list, keep it up to date, and tack it at the end of each product announcement for quick reference. So we gave in and decided to try that. If this turns out to upset people, we will just revert to the previous policy and not publish prices. For the record, we do not think that excluding the prices has a negative impact on our sales, at least not when the announcements are posted to L-Soft lists. Past experience has shown that people contact us to get the prices anyway - it just saves time for everyone to include price lists with the announcements. Anyway, I apologize for the inconvenience this may have caused. We will do whatever the majority thinks is most appropriate. Eric