Path: utzoo!telecom-request Date: Sat, 4 May 91 05:55:31 PDT From: "Louis J. Judice 04-May-1991 0845" Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Spreading Rumors (Was: Prodigy) Message-ID: Organization: TELECOM Digest Sender: Telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Approved: Telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 11, Issue 329, Message 8 of 9 Lines: 27 It's a tribute to the wide circulation of this Digest and the popularity of BBS systems - here at DEC, I received no less than twelve copies of the "Prodigy/Fraudigy" article from various sources in my internal E-mail. When I looked at the headers, I found that most originated in one place, but ended up being routed virtually all over the company - I bet 50% of our E-mail subscribers received a copy of it one way or another. I sent the well written counter-argument (by the Hayes person, whose name escapes me) to the top level of each routing chain, so it will be interesting to see if a less hysterical article gets fowarded so rapidly. What worries me is - let's say Prodigy was a startup company, and it was ruined by the negative publicity generated by this nonsense. Could the ORIGINAL poster be responsible? Could intermediate mail systems or BBS's be held liable? The oddest thing about this is when you ask someone who flies into your office "would you REALLY believe that IBM/Sears would REALLY do such a thing", the answer is always - "Well, No, of course not". "So, why forward the article?" ljj