From: dlv@bwalk.dm.com (Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM)
Date: Fri, 23 Aug 1996 20:03:14 +0800
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: Spamming (Good or Bad?)
In-Reply-To: <199608230336.DAA00609@fountainhead.net>
Message-ID: <eRX4sD10w165w@bwalk.dm.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


Vipul Ved Prakash <vipul@pobox.com> writes:

> > Free (commercial)speech for you (perhaps at our expense), but no free
> > speech for us?
>
> This is peculiar. Nobody seems to mind ads in Newspapers, printed magazines,
> web sites. That is unwanted stuff too, but now someone is paying for it. Thou
> many grounds :
>
> 1. If the guy has to pay for it, he'll do it in limits.
> 2. He must have selected the context carefully, so the ad is most prolly of
>    some use to its audience
> 3. He'll tend to talk sense.

The advertizers in printed & broadcast media exercise a great deal of control
over the content. E.g., a magazine that gets revenues from tobacco ads isn't
likely to run a story about tobacco companies trying to addict kids. That's
why you see more anti-tobacco content in broadcast media (who can't run
tobacco ads) than in printed media. (And there are cross-ownership
restrictions.)

---

Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM
Brighton Beach Boardwalk BBS, Forest Hills, N.Y.: +1-718-261-2013, 14.4Kbps