From: "Vladimir Z. Nuri" <vznuri@netcom.com>
Date: Fri, 19 Jul 1996 08:20:19 +0800
To: "Declan B. McCullagh" <declan+@CMU.EDU>
Subject: Re: Surf-filter lists
In-Reply-To: <klvNtWK00YUq14yB40@andrew.cmu.edu>
Message-ID: <199607181803.LAA01203@netcom18.netcom.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



>
>L.D. fails to say why NOW and gay history sites and gun rights sites and
>EFF and LPF and SAFE @ MIT and HotWired should be blocked.

absolutely no reason is necessary. when a parent says to their
child, "because I said so", what recourse does that child have?
the service is doing the equivalent of this, and will be appropriate
for and appeal to the many parents who raise their children in this 
authoritarian manner.

a company does not have to give reasons. as TCM just wrote, people
will vote with their cash. the ultimate determinant is if the company
is profitable under a capitalist system. they could have ex-nazi's
doing the filtering, and if they are making money even when their
customers know about it, what's the problem?

now, Meeks is doing a valuable public service in *informing* the
public of criteria customers may be interested in they may
not have been previously aware of (to the minor extent that
he did so in an objective way). however, they
are the ones to make the decision. they may decide that they 
like the whole idea of secrecy. the market is deciding as we
speak. the article is in a sense part of this decision-making
process. your own opinion is not irrelevant-- I have never said
that. it's a nice additional perspective. 
I'm only saying its a small factor and you're awfully
presumptuous to think everyone (esp. those that use the services)
feels the same way about a lot
of subjective material as you do.

McCullagh, have you thought out your position at all on this? all the 
responses I have gotten from you show you haven't put much thought into the
matter and are quite caught off guard by my fairly basic points.

let me ask you: Yahoo *routinely* rejects zillions of URLs
submitted to them. an equally emotional article could be written
that highlights their editorial decisions in borderline cases.
"Yahoo rejected a link to [x]!!! that's censorship!!!". please
figure out what you are and are not opposed to, and have a 
clearcut stand. don't you see the amazing similarity between
rating services and Yahoo? what, in principle, is the difference?
your own arbitrary opinions?
 
 He also fails
>to understand that Brock and I both wrote the article.

the article is ambiguous about who wrote what.  It's clearly
Meeks writing style. I give you credit for whatever research you
contributed. if I were you I would not want to be associated
with that particular article however <g>

> He finally fails
>to understand that CyberPatrol's categories are anything but clear.

I don't recall the service you were picking apart in particular, but
I thought Meeks ranting over the "monkey with his eye poked out"
as not necessarily "gratuitous depictions of violence" was a real
big lose position for himself.  the categories may be clear enough
for the *customers*, i.e. parents, and that's all that matters. you
can rant all you want, but if people are paying money and continue
to do so in spite of your objections, where does that leave the
validity of your opinion?