Re: Net Advertising

Dan Lester (ALILESTE@idbsu.idbsu.edu)
Wed, 10 Nov 93 07:53:11 MST 

Message-Id: <9311101513.AA13144@a.cni.org>
Date:         Wed, 10 Nov 93 07:53:11 MST
From: Dan Lester <ALILESTE@idbsu.idbsu.edu>
Subject:      Re: Net Advertising
To: ritim@uriacc.uri.edu
In-Reply-To:  Message of Wed, 10 Nov 1993 10:29:34 EST from

On Wed, 10 Nov 1993 10:29:34 EST RITIM said:
>From: Peter Graham  <psgraham@gandalf.rutgers.edu>
>One analogy I've thought of recently that might help (I think at this stage
>that analogies can be useful, if they're thought through and not taken too
>much at face value) is that of highway billboards.  Broadly speaking, there
>is no limit on what can be put on billboards--that is, I don't know of

   Sorry, Peter....doesn't work....

>attempts to control content.  However, there are limits on where billboards
>can be, how many there can be, and the like (I think too few, but that's
>neither here nor there for the present use of the analogy).  It's not
>legitimate to put a billboard in the median strip nor to hang it overhead
>from the exit-ramp sign.

   That is because the feds or the state control the situation.  If you
come out with a big truck or a fork lift or whatever to put up a new
billboard it is obvious, takes some time, and is easy to stop, and to
force you to take it down if you put it up anyway.

   None of that is the case with email.  I could send an ad at anytime
to anywhere, and even assuming I wasn't a good forger to face the sender,
there is no way to take it back.  Someone could pull my account at a
particular site or vendor, but I could always just sign up with another
commercial service, in case I hadn't already bought my own net access.

>True, some people put stickers (mostly point-of-view stickers, not commercial
>advertising) on local stop signs and direction signs; so there is abuse.  But
>there is a recognized means of controlling the quantity of advertising
>without controlling content.  Any help here?

   Actually I've seen both on stop signs and such.  These are actually
MUCH more analogous to the email ads, as they are done quickly and without
much of any retaliatory or punishment possibility.  Suggesting this does
NOT mean that I think ads on the nets are abuse; some are, some aren't.

   At least on the interstates the feds control the billboards.  They
might THINK they control the nets, but they don't, and I don't think
most of the feds (whoever and whatever they are) even think they control
them.

   cyclops

  Dan Lester                          Internet: alileste@idbsu.idbsu.edu
  Network Information Coordinator     Bitnet:   ALILESTE@IDBSU
  Boise State University Library
  Boise, Idaho  83725                 In the kingdom of the blind, the
  208-385-1235                        one-eyed man is king.  Erasmus. 1523

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