randall@Virginia.EDU (Randall Atkinson) (06/17/91)
carl@sol1.gps.caltech.edu (Carl J Lydick) writes: > For some time, USF@VAX5.CIT.CORNELL.EDU has been posting commercial notices > to the SCI.SPACE newsgroup. I understand that he's doing against > the wishes of the management of VAX5.CIT.CORNELL.EDU. If Cornell is sending or knowingly allowing the sending of commercial postings out via any link governed by the Internet "Commercial Use" prohibition, then they are liable for the actions of their user and for the violation of the prohibition of the use of the Internet for commercial purposes. Commercial use of regular USENET (ALTnet is not USENET) is A Bad Thing, but other than if the traffic is sent over Internet links, it probably isn't illicit or illegal and certainly the only pressure that USENET can apply is peer pressure. This is an administrative issue and hence this has been crossposted to news.admin and followups belong there as well.
emv@msen.com (Ed Vielmetti) (06/17/91)
In article <1991Jun16.235933.16183@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU> randall@Virginia.EDU (Randall Atkinson) writes: > commercial notices to the SCI.SPACE newsgroup If Cornell is sending or knowingly allowing the sending of commercial postings out via any link governed by the Internet "Commercial Use" prohibition, then they are liable for the actions of their user and for the violation of the prohibition of the use of the Internet for commercial purposes. There is no blanket "prohibition of the use of the Internet for commercial purposes," no such thing at all. Various forms of commercial activity have various sanctions and restrictions put against them on various networks which make up the Internet, anything from "any commercial use is OK" to "absolutely forbidden to even mention money (or sex, drugs, politics etc.)". There is a wide diversity of policiy and opinion on how things should be and even how the current regulations are to be interpreted. There is a near-universal opinion, sometimes expressed as "policy" but more often expressed in angry messages to system operators and to users who cross the unwritten rules, that unsolicited commercials are a Bad Thing for the health of the network, and that users should not be subjected to them. What exactly makes up an unsolicited commercial is not clear; certainly the Dave Rhodes chain letter crosses that line, and various other postings inappropriately sprayed across other newsgroups and sent to other mailing lists have caused the same sort of reaction. The things which arouse people's ire are typically poorly written, repetetive, low on content, of marginal interest to the group in question, wildly mis-posted or cross-posted, and unnecessarily long-winded. (A collection of the articles that get people mad would be an interesting study. Anyone have a bunch of classic "you shouldn't do this on the net" articles?") Is the mere fact that someone is sending out "commercial notices" to sci.space a problem? No. It is not possible to determine just from that little factoid whether there's any reason to be concerned. If I were to (for example) be a person who made a number of valuable contributions to the discussion of sci.space, and was enough of an expert and well-regarded to have written a book on the subject, no one would object to a small and tasteful amount of self-promotion (including perhaps prices, ordering information, and maybe even a way for netters to order the book by e-mail). On the other hand, a shameless and repetetive (and content-free) plea for money isn't going to go over too well. -- Edward Vielmetti, vice president for research, MSEN Inc. emv@msen.com On the Net, the Net-way is best. It's just that we are trying to figure out what the Net-way is. e. miya