dalamb@avi.umiacs.umd.edu (David Lamb) (01/29/91)
In article <156215@felix.UUCP> asylvain@felix.UUCP (Alvin "the Chipmunk" Sylvain) writes: >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. >... >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*! There's room for considering junk mail to be evil without condemning all advertising. For example, far less costly to the environment would be a scheme (almost possible today) of funelling advertising revenues into building a database of "advertiser claims" and buying (free) access terminals for public libraries. Consumers with home computers could have dialup access, and those without could take a trip to the library. If a consumer wants information, they can get it; if they don't, they aren't bothered. The main features of this approach should be - no junkmail - free access by consumers (hmm. maybe a few message units for phonecalls to the (local) database access point. but maybe there's a way to get the advertisers to pay for that, too). - advertisers still get to claim what they like (bounded only by consumer protection laws applicable to *any* medium) I suppose, given the CallerID controversy, we'd probably insist the database dialup not be allowed to request callerID in places that don't have callerID blocking, but I'm less sure about that. Even better would be hypertext, with annotations to advertiser's claims by people like Nader's organization, but perhaps we couldn't get advertising revenues to pay for that ;-) I don't know what to do about coupons under this scheme. I suppose I also don't know how to convince advertisers to do this, since they give up control. -- David Alex Lamb internet: dalamb@umiacs.umd.edu