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Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!spool2.mu.edu!sdd.hp.com!news.cs.indiana.edu!ux1.cso.uiuc.edu!tmkk
From: tmkk@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu (Scott Coleman)
Newsgroups: misc.consumers,alt.activism,talk.environment,comp.org.eff.talk
Subject: Re: Here's how to CONTROL YOUR JUNK MAIL
Keywords: DMA Suppression junk-mail recycling activism
Message-ID: <1991Jan27.195054.1878@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu>
Date: 27 Jan 91 19:50:54 GMT
References: <856@argosy.UUCP> <156215@felix.UUCP>
Distribution: na
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana
Lines: 36

In article <156215@felix.UUCP> asylvain@felix.UUCP (Alvin "the Chipmunk" Sylvain) writes:
>
>> 1.  Most junk mailers think they're doing a public service. 
>
>Don't be so all-fired-up certain they're *not* doing a public service.
[...]
>
>Let's face facts, nobody goes to the library to research what deoderant
>to buy, so the decision is largely based on what advertising has had the
>most effective. 

That may be the basis for *your* decision. Personally, I use such sources
as the net and Consumer Reports to find out about products. As far as I'm
concerned, junk mailers are performing a public DISservice by helping to 
fill our world with garbage.

>So, while I applaud your efforts, and I'm concerned at how much crap
>goes on at public expense, I must remind you that *advertising is not
>evil*! It is a perfectly valid method of informing the public of one's
>goods and services. 

You've made quite a leap here. The poster was complaining about JUNK MAIL,
not about advertising in general. I don't care if people advertise; I just
wish they would do so in a way which doesn't directly contribute to our
pollution problem (i.e. when I "throw away" or disregard a TV commercial,
I don't have to pay the trash man to haul it away, and it takes up no space
at the town dump. A case could be made that commercials cause noise pollution, 
;-) but I won't be the one to make it here...)


JUNK MAIL SUX!! 
-- 
Scott Coleman                                                    tmkk@uiuc.edu

"Unisys has demonstrated the power of two. That's their stock price today."
       - Scott McNealy on the history of mergers in the computer industry.