Path: utzoo!censor!geac!torsqnt!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!decwrl!world!eff!mnemonic
From: mnemonic@eff.org (Mike Godwin)
Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk
Subject: Re: EFF and Prodigy
Message-ID: <1990Dec24.180546.532@eff.org>
Date: 24 Dec 90 18:05:46 GMT
References: <6506@crash.cts.com>
Organization: The Electronic Frontier Foundation
Lines: 34

In article <6506@crash.cts.com> jonl@pro-smof.cts.com (Jon Lebkowsky) writes:
>In-Reply-To: message from mnemonic@eff.org
>
>The thing I think it's important to remember about Prodigy is that they're not
>about telecommunicating, they're about marketing. Prodigy is essentially an
>online catalog. The news, weather, and email features are included to attract
>users. It's like a magazine that exists to run ads, where the content is not
>the reason for its existence.

Then why do their print and direct-mail ads stress telecommunication?
It is this focus of their ads that led the Texas Attorney General
to investigate them.

>What's good about Prodigy, to me, is that it has defined some of the issues of
>telecommunicating that we desperately need to discuss before we go much
>further...and these issues touch some pretty heavy political issues...how we
>should run our 'democracy,' if that's what it is, and how that fits with the
>impact of 21st century electronic media.

I agree. The Prodigy case is very instructive. Prodigy's management
is uninterested in providing the services that their clients want.



--Mike




-- 
Mike Godwin, (617) 864-0665 |"If the doors of perception were cleansed
mnemonic@eff.org            | every thing would appear to man as it is,
Electronic Frontier         | infinite."
Foundation                  |                 --Blake