From: jbernat@quip.eecs.umich.edu (Jim Bernatowicz)
Subject: Commercial Announcement Listserver
Followup-To: comp.sys.next.marketplace
Organization: University of Michigan EECS Dept., Ann Arbor, MI
Date: Sun, 10 Jan 1993 21:56:32 GMT

Before I begin, I would like to state  that  these  opinions  and
concerns  are  my  own.   I  do  not  purport  to represent x% of
readers, however one or two may agree.  It is not my intention to
insult  anybody, so please: flames > /dev/null.  Intelligent dis-
cussion is encouraged.

To quote Glenn Reid, "We don't get the  biz.*  hierarchy,  and  I
suspect  a  lot of others don't, either.  That's the POINT of the
biz.* groups, that you can choose not to get them because they're
commercial  in  nature :-) :-) :-) As I've said before, I support
anarchy and intelligence on USENET."

I support intelligence on USENET, but anarchy  is  dangerous.   I
have  never  paid  a bill for the resources I've used on the net,
but I know it is very expensive and I appreciate that.  If I were
paying  the bill I'd like to think that I could choose whether or
not to foot the bill for commercial advertisement.  For  example,
if  I  were paying for my newsfeed by connect time to download it
over a dialup line, 94Kbyte newsgrazer advertisements  would  add
up  quickly.   I  believe that allowing anarchy to become the ac-
cepted norm would be opening  Pandora's  box.   Commercial  posts
would  grow  as  word travelled about an advertising method which
shifts the cost of the ad from  the  company  to  the  recipient.
Even  small  ASCII  ads would become a significant cost burden if
allowed to escalate unchecked.  The relatively small size of  the
NeXT market cannot justify abandoning the policies established by
those who pay  the  bill,  because  such  precedents  affect  the
behavior  of  the  entire  net.   Also, though the NeXT market is
currently small, I'd guess we are all hoping that it will grow by
leaps  and  bounds.  By segregating the commercial posts into the
biz hierarchy, the authority who pays the bill can decide whether
or  not the cost to obtain and store such ads will be paid.  Does
the payor not have a right to decide whether or  not  to  fund  a
for-profit organization?

Personally I like to hear about NeXT products and items for sale,
but  to  quote  Royce  Howland from an earlier post: "If we don't
ourselves regulate this sort of traffic in line with network pro-
viders'  acceptable  use policies, they may decide to regulate it
for us."  I think self-government is preferable to  authoritative
government  of USENET.  If the "non-commercial" USENET groups be-
gan supporting commercial posts then it is likely that sites that
axed  the  biz.*  groups  would  also  drop  the  offending "non-
commercial" groups for  the  same  reasons.   Alternatively,  one
could envision a scenario where sites passed the growing costs on
to the users who read news by adding accounting and  billing.   I
would  not like to see such responses to the rejection of the es-
tablished guidelines.

I would like to propose a possible solution:  Start a  commercial
announcement  listserver.  Individuals would be able to subscribe
and unsubscribe to the mailing list via  E-mail,  and  commercial
articles  would  be posted to the mailing list instead of USENET.
Instructions for subscription and usage of the list would be  in-
cluded  in  the  regular posting of the comp.sys.next.marketplace
charter or some other logical place.

Problems solved: (1) Commercial advertisements are  delivered  to
interested  parties  and  USENET  guidelines are not broken.  (2)
Those who do not wish to sift through the  commercial  ads  would
not  have  to.  (3) Sites concerned about propagation and storage
costs can regulate with user disk quotas and mail  accounting  of
some  sort  if they so desire.  (4) Only the sites supporting the
interested users will pay the propagation and  storage  costs  of
the  ads since the E-mail is not broadcasted to every site on the
net.

Problems remaining: A site is needed to be the home of the  mail-
ing list, and someone must maintain it.

I think preservation of the current state of the net  (available,
little  regulation,  and good signal-to-noise ratio) is worth the
effort of finding a good solution BEFORE commercial traffic grows
to be a problem.  Comments?

Jim Bernatowicz
-------------------------------------.------------------------------------
jbernat@zip.eecs.umich.edu     -or-  |            Jim Bernatowicz
jbernat@caen.engin.umich.edu   -or-  |         Graduate student, CSE
an602@cleveland.freenet.edu          |       The University of Michigan
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.marketplace