Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!wuarchive!rex!uflorida!travis!tom From: tom@ssd.csd.harris.com (Tom Horsley) Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk Subject: Re: Information Control Message-ID: Date: 21 Mar 91 13:25:47 GMT References: <3622.27d4c133@iccgcc.decnet.ab.com> <1991Mar11.070712.4223@cs.ucla.edu> <3778.27dd2150@iccgcc.decnet.ab.com> <1225@airs.UUCP> <17230@venera.isi.edu> <17246@venera.isi.edu> Sender: news@travis.csd.harris.com Organization: Harris Computer Systems Division Lines: 40 In-reply-to: woolf@isi.edu's message of 21 Mar 91 02:24:32 GMT >>>>> Regarding Re: Information Control; woolf@isi.edu (Suzanne Woolf) adds: woolf> My concern is primarily with situations where there are no personal woolf> incentives to respect my preferences (which I hope isn't the case woolf> with most of my friends) and where there are incentives to sell woolf> information about me without my consent ($3 per name per mailing woolf> list, in many cases). woolf> Again, I don't like the "more laws" solution much, except I could see woolf> a law that requires people to get my consent before they sold personal woolf> information about me, and tell me if I ask what they've done with such woolf> information. I'd settle for that "free flow of information" going woolf> both ways. Actually, if there is to be a law, perhaps the best form would be something like: "You can't sell information about your customers without cutting them in on the profits" This would put most organizations in the position of either having to give away the information they gather, or organize some way to distribute the profits to their customers. They wouldn't do either of these, because both of them would be a lot of trouble which would actually cost them money. Remember, the only way to stop something is to come up with a way to make it unprofitable... Actually, I have been thinking about starting this company that gathers names and addresses from .signature files that come over the net and selling them to companies who want to market things to computer hacker types... :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-). -- ====================================================================== domain: tahorsley@csd.harris.com USMail: Tom Horsley uucp: ...!uunet!hcx1!tahorsley 511 Kingbird Circle Delray Beach, FL 33444 +==== Censorship is the only form of Obscenity ======================+ | (Wait, I forgot government tobacco subsidies...) | +====================================================================+