brad@looking.on.ca (Brad Templeton) (12/18/90)
In article <1990Dec10.211625.9536@eff.org> mkapor@eff.org (Mitch Kapor) writes: > Although EFF is not involved at the moment in any activities >directly relating to the Prodigy dispute, we believe that the dispute >touches some basic issues with which we are very concerned, and that it >illustrates the potential dangers of allowing private entities such as >large corporations to try and dictate the market for online electronic >services. > My personal opinion is that the EFF can do little but stand (almost) wholly behind Prodigy on this one, as distasteful as that may sound to some. It is my impression that one of the EFF's goals is to get lawmakers to realize that electronic publication deserves all the rights and protections that more traditional forms get. That means full first amendment protection for electronic publication, and no government interference. We must realize that the 1st amendment to your constitution is a double-edge sword, however. You must be prepared to vigourously defend the right to publish in ways you don't like. Prodigy has made it clear from day 1 that they view themselves as an edited publication. I feel it goes against what I feel are the EFF's principles to even suggest to them what they should or should not publish. The EFF should be fighting for their right to publish and operate as they see fit. Only the market and the will of Prodigy's owners should influence it. (I do not say that Mitch was attempting to tell Prodigy what to publish and what not to. I merely say that I think the EFF's role should be to defend their right to make that decision.) The one mitigating factor here is that Prodigy made a serious mistake and actually told people to take discussions into E-mail. They did not realize how much traffic that would generate, with some users sending thousands of messages per day. So we can sympathise with those users who were told to go to E-mail and later told that this avenue would only be open to them at a high added cost. But this was a bad business decision, and nothing more, in my opinion. It will lose them customers. Many people don't realize the economics of offering flat rate service. Flat-rate services only pretend to offer unlimited use. They do this under the assumption that few, if anybody, we really take them to the limit. If too many people take you up on it (as happened with PC Pursuit and now Prodigy) you just can't offer flat rate any more. It's a fact of business life. The problem is that computers magnify this difficulty. With a computer you can use far more of a flat rate service than a human being could alone. Thus PC-Pursuit broke down when people started making permanent connections or running USENET feeds. We can, of course, encourage Prodigy to offer a more unrestricted service. In fact GEnie, where I am a SYSOP, is getting a lot of mileage out of the fact that their new flat-rate service offers things that are more a forum than a magazine. But it must be up to the market, in the end, to decide between Prodigy, GEnie and a zillion other forum services of all kinds. -- Brad Templeton, ClariNet Communications Corp. -- Waterloo, Ontario 519/884-7473
steve@Advansoft.COM (Steve Savitzky) (12/18/90)
In article <1990Dec17.195846.6364@looking.on.ca> brad@looking.on.ca (Brad Templeton) writes: In article <1990Dec10.211625.9536@eff.org> mkapor@eff.org (Mitch Kapor) writes: > Although EFF is not involved at the moment in any activities >directly relating to the Prodigy dispute, we believe that the dispute >touches some basic issues with which we are very concerned, and that it >illustrates the potential dangers of allowing private entities such as >large corporations to try and dictate the market for online electronic >services. > My personal opinion is that the EFF can do little but stand (almost) wholly behind Prodigy on this one, as distasteful as that may sound to some. ... Prodigy has made it clear from day 1 that they view themselves as an edited publication. I feel it goes against what I feel are the EFF's principles to even suggest to them what they should or should not publish. The EFF should be fighting for their right to publish and operate as they see fit. Only the market and the will of Prodigy's owners should influence it. BUT: Prodigy claims to be offering an electronic *mail* service as well. There have been some claims that private email is being read; this ought to be considered illegal, if true. And adding a surcharge for mail onto what they advertise as a flat-rate service could certainly be considered a bait-and-switch scam. It is also not clear what the legal status of something that gives the appearance of a public-access forum *ought* to be. For example, even though shopping malls are private property, they are considered to be sufficiently "public" that they are not permitted to restrict free- speech activities. Since Prodigy is presenting itself as a kind of electronic shopping mall, the same kind of rule should perhaps apply. -- \ --Steve Savitzky-- \ ADVANsoft Research Corp \ REAL hackers use an AXE! \ \ steve@advansoft.COM \ 4301 Great America Pkwy \ #include<disclaimer.h> \ \ arc!steve@apple.COM \ Santa Clara, CA 95954 \ 408-727-3357 \ \__ steve@arc.UUCP _________________________________________________________
seals@uncecs.edu (Larry W. Seals) (12/18/90)
In following this thread, I have read about unauthorized intrusion into
corporate computer systems, privacy issues and Prodigy. But I recently
stumbled upon another thread in comp.risks concerning the supposed
ability of Prodigy to "reverse access" your computer, check the version
of Prodigy software you are running and if registered, automatically
upgrade your copy to the newest rev (which implies that if the software
is not registered they can shut off your Prodigy access?). In an
interview in the Christian Science Monitor (memory does not serve, I
read this in comp.risks earlier in the week), a supervisory type was
asked about Prodigy's remote access of a user's system and the possible
potential for abuse. The supervisor answered something to the effect
of "...that would never happen here!"
Never? A close friend has decided to stop using Prodigy after reading
about this. His reason echoes mine - if someone wants access to my
system, they better damn well ask!
**********************************************************************
* | Larry Seals @ Trailing Edge Software
/ \ | "When it doesn't have to be
/ \ | best!"
/_____\ Merry |"I thought ESPN was the telepathy
# Christmas! | channel!" - Matt Frewer as Dr. Mike
| Stratford (Doctor,Doctor)
***********************************************************************brad@looking.on.ca (Brad Templeton) (12/19/90)
I doubt that Prodigy is reading private e-mail. That's clearly illegal. It is somewhat ironic. A year ago, people would have called 25 cents/message electronic mail a price breakthrough, cheaper than MCI, Dialcom, etc. Now GEnie has unlimited E-mail and a few others do to, but it's still the exception. Right now it's a fact of business that you can't allow unlimited e-mail and mailing lists of thousands of people and make money. I expect that to change with time, but what's the surprise today? Recall that Prodigy doesn't run ads over the E-mail, either. I think the only way GEnie will escape is that it doesn't offer mailing lists in the unlimited-use service. -- Brad Templeton, ClariNet Communications Corp. -- Waterloo, Ontario 519/884-7473
mnemonic@eff.org (Mike Godwin) (12/20/90)
In article <1990Dec19.064520.1529@looking.on.ca> brad@looking.on.ca (Brad Templeton) writes: > >It is somewhat ironic. A year ago, people would have called 25 cents/message >electronic mail a price breakthrough, cheaper than MCI, Dialcom, etc. > >Now GEnie has unlimited E-mail and a few others do to, but it's still the >exception. Right now it's a fact of business that you can't allow >unlimited e-mail and mailing lists of thousands of people and make money. >I expect that to change with time, but what's the surprise today? It is also ironic that the Prodigy protestors weren't really interested in unlimited e-mail to begin with. What they wanted was the ability to engage in conference discussions without going through censors and without having public discussions abruptly removed. Prodigy management's advice was to take it to e-mail. Which they did. Only *then* did Prodigy get worried about the volume of e-mail and institute a usage charge. They clearly created their own problem. The Prodigy protest is only tangentially about unlimited e-mail. --Mike -- Mike Godwin, (617) 864-0665 |"If the doors of perception were cleansed mnemonic@eff.org | every thing would appear to man as it is, Electronic Frontier | infinite." Foundation | --Blake
cyberoid@milton.u.washington.edu (Robert Jacobson) (12/20/90)
The issue not dealt with by Brad Templeton is whether in fact Prodigy, as a service integrator and provider of transactions among parties other than itself, is merely a publisher or something else more akin to a public market. If the latter, which we can debate but which will only be resolved by the law, then the publisher argument goes out the window. Weren't the people issuing messages on Prodigy, particularly if they were multiple messages, publishers of a sort, too? Bob Jacobson
brad@looking.on.ca (Brad Templeton) (12/21/90)
In article <13281@milton.u.washington.edu> cyberoid@milton.u.washington.edu (Robert Jacobson) writes: > >window. Weren't the people issuing messages on Prodigy, particularly >if they were multiple messages, publishers of a sort, too? No. According to Prodigy's official stand, they are the authors of letters to the editor of a magazine. As such, they have no rights, other than the right not to have their message altered to say other than what the author intended it to say. Prodigy takes this stand because it is a well defined stand in the law. In a posting I made to comp.org.eff(.news) a month or two ago, I defined 4 classes of electronic interaction, of which is this is one extreme, and something alike to a common carrier is the other. We have little law yet to deal with the middle classes, in which things like GEnie, rec.humor.funny and USENET belong. Whatever their customers believe, my own readings of statements from Prodigy officials, and my own brief chats with them at the VIA conference, they want to sit firmly in the publisher end of the spectrum, no doubt because it is the only one that is well defined. There is some question that they have misled their users on this -- that would be up to a court. -- Brad Templeton, ClariNet Communications Corp. -- Waterloo, Ontario 519/884-7473
mnemonic@eff.org (Mike Godwin) (12/21/90)
In article <1990Dec20.181029.29613@looking.on.ca> brad@looking.on.ca (Brad Templeton) writes: > >Whatever their customers believe, my own readings of statements from Prodigy >officials, and my own brief chats with them at the VIA conference, they >want to sit firmly in the publisher end of the spectrum, no doubt because >it is the only one that is well defined. There is some question that they >have misled their users on this -- that would be up to a court. I have just heard that Prodigy has recently come to an agreement with the Texas attorney general. They are to reimburse the AG for investigation charges, and offer refunds to all Prodigy subscribers in Texas who subscribed after direct-mail solicitation. Turns out that the direct-mail materials didn't mention a user fee for e-mail. I've seen some Prodigy materials, and it is clear that the e-mail and conferencing systems are highly stressed. --Mike -- Mike Godwin, (617) 864-0665 |"If the doors of perception were cleansed mnemonic@eff.org | every thing would appear to man as it is, Electronic Frontier | infinite." Foundation | --Blake
jonl@pro-smof.cts.com (Jon Lebkowsky) (12/24/90)
In-Reply-To: message from mnemonic@eff.org The thing I think it's important to remember about Prodigy is that they're not about telecommunicating, they're about marketing. Prodigy is essentially an online catalog. The news, weather, and email features are included to attract users. It's like a magazine that exists to run ads, where the content is not the reason for its existence. They pull out the controversial stuff for the same reason a restaurant cook I worked with a hundred years ago wouldn't let me put pepper in the mashed potatoes: it might offend somebody with a sensitive palate. What's good about Prodigy, to me, is that it has defined some of the issues of telecommunicating that we desperately need to discuss before we go much further...and these issues touch some pretty heavy political issues...how we should run our 'democracy,' if that's what it is, and how that fits with the impact of 21st century electronic media. The decisions we make now will shape our future 'way beyond the mere issue of whether email will be censored or whether databases will be regulated.
mnemonic@eff.org (Mike Godwin) (12/25/90)
In article <6506@crash.cts.com> jonl@pro-smof.cts.com (Jon Lebkowsky) writes: >In-Reply-To: message from mnemonic@eff.org > >The thing I think it's important to remember about Prodigy is that they're not >about telecommunicating, they're about marketing. Prodigy is essentially an >online catalog. The news, weather, and email features are included to attract >users. It's like a magazine that exists to run ads, where the content is not >the reason for its existence. Then why do their print and direct-mail ads stress telecommunication? It is this focus of their ads that led the Texas Attorney General to investigate them. >What's good about Prodigy, to me, is that it has defined some of the issues of >telecommunicating that we desperately need to discuss before we go much >further...and these issues touch some pretty heavy political issues...how we >should run our 'democracy,' if that's what it is, and how that fits with the >impact of 21st century electronic media. I agree. The Prodigy case is very instructive. Prodigy's management is uninterested in providing the services that their clients want. --Mike -- Mike Godwin, (617) 864-0665 |"If the doors of perception were cleansed mnemonic@eff.org | every thing would appear to man as it is, Electronic Frontier | infinite." Foundation | --Blake
brad@looking.on.ca (Brad Templeton) (01/03/91)
I am not sure that Prodigy's management is uninterested in providing what their clients want. I just think they want other clients. :-) I've talked to Prodigy people and it's clear from the start that their goal was not to create a flat-rate Compuserve. They are looking for another market, a market that they believe is the big one down the road. However, when they started, they got a lot of people who were looking for that flat-rate CIS. And, of course, the more active, aware, and opinionated users are the non-online-virgins, and they are the ones who wanted a cheaper version of what they had. I think Prodigy is too early. There will eventually be a market for what they call the Dinsey of the online world. It isn't now, however. I see them as torn between what they want their service to be on one hand, and the fact that they have to show some success today on the other. To get success today, they need the business of the existing online community that wants flat rate "traditional" online service. But that's not where they intend to go in the future. Without the huge financial backing it's got, it would have died a while ago. -- Brad Templeton, ClariNet Communications Corp. -- Waterloo, Ontario 519/884-7473
glass@portia.Stanford.EDU (Brett Glass) (01/03/91)
> >I think Prodigy is too early. There will eventually be a market for what >they call the Dinsey of the online world. It isn't now, however. > Of course, Disney largely produces pap nowadays; they're nowhere near as gutsy as when old Walt was in charge. But Prodigy is different still. I tend to think of Prodigy as a cross between USA Today and those TV channels which pre-empt your favorite shows for "infomercials." I think the trend toward "flat rate" services is a bad one. If you've ever eaten at an "all you can eat" buffet, you'll understand the problem: there's no way to maintain quality when you can't limit the portions. "Stodigy" may survive, but I doubt it will ever make a profit. <BG>
jonl@pro-smof.cts.com (Jon Lebkowsky) (01/07/91)
In-Reply-To: message from mnemonic@eff.org Mike Godwin asks, possibly rhetorically, why Prodigy stresses telecommunicating in their advertising. Perhaps the best analogy would be the robust naked women on the covers of Penthouse and Playboy: it's a lure. Magazines, commercial television networks, etc dangle content before us as a baited hook. We bite, and swallow the hook with the worm. Someone else in this conference disdained my criticism of Prodigy as unwarranted. I believe he said that his kids like to use Prodigy. Well, I would like to look at this sort of thing critically: those devices that feed our consumerism make us feel good, but they're rubbing our tummy while they're picking our pocket. That's a sham. Consumerism may be pervasive in America, but I hope and I pray that it's not all this country is about, because if it is, we ain't got much left. (Incidentally, thanks to Mike and to EFF for taking a stand to protect our online freedom)
justin@inmet.inmet.com (01/08/91)
>I am not sure that Prodigy's management is uninterested in providing >what their clients want. I just think they want other clients. :-) > >I've talked to Prodigy people and it's clear from the start that their >goal was not to create a flat-rate Compuserve. > >They are looking for another market, a market that they believe is the >big one down the road. > ... >Brad Templeton, ClariNet Communications Corp. -- Waterloo, Ontario 519/884-7473 Bingo. The important thing to remember here is that Prodigy was *not* originally conceived of as a telecommunications product. Once they started realizing the importance of telecomm, they added it in, but it was a minor detail in the early days (back when the company was still called Trintex, and still involved CBS). Think back about ten years -- that's when this product was originally dreamed up. The big buzzwords then were "teletext" and "videotex", and that's the environment that Prodigy grew out of. It was intended to be an information *provider*, not an information *communicator*. It's never been important in the design, so it's never worked very well. My suspicion is that they were taken *very* off-balance by the enormous demand for the telecomm side of the system, and still haven't figured out how to deal with it... For what it was designed to do, Prodigy works fairly well -- that is, everything *except* the bboards and the email. Hopefully, they'll wake up and start dealing with the latter two correctly sometime soon... -- Justin du Coeur
kadie@cs.uiuc.edu (Carl M. Kadie) (01/10/91)
In <1991Jan3.175849.5314@eff.org> mnemonic@eff.org (Mike Godwin) writes: [...] >It seems likely to me that there was a divergence between how Prodigy >management saw their service and how Prodigy's marketing folks decided >to characterize it. [...] Has anyone else seen the latest TV commercial for Prodigy? In it, the graphics appear on the screen almost instantly. It looked to me like a divergence between Prodigy's marketing folks and reality. -- Carl Kadie -- kadie@cs.uiuc.edu -- University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Fourth Amendment (War-on-Drugs version): The right of the people to be secure in their persons shall not be violated but upon probable cause *or for random urine tests*