Re: PBM-Aid for American Flagship

From: mylesend@aol.com (MylesEnd)

Date: Wed, 29 Oct 1997 00:00:00 +0000

>> Actually, it sounds like one of the few professional things that happened
>with
>>  American Flagship regarding subscribers.  I used to belong to compuserve,
>have
>>  a certain credit card and subscribe to the Wall Street Journal, all over 5
>>  years ago were cancelled.  I still get mailings from all of
>>  them...still...never stopped getting them.  Companies now treat your
>address
>>  and any other information they get from you as gold.
>
>Which is exactly why Ken should own that mailing list before he uses
>it.
>
>I've seen other magazines do similar things, but they always had the
>subscribers write in to ask for free issues instead of "borrowing" the
>old mailing list without the permission of the new owner. I don't know
>if Ken in fact did this; he has yet to make that clear. But if he
>did, it would be unethical.
>
>I lost an entire year subscription to Aries magazine when SPI went
>bust, so I know how bad it feels to lose money. But ethics are
>ethics.
>
>-- g

<Chuckle> whoa there, you sound like one of those IRS or SBA guys who can't
 understand that with information you can own it, transfer it, or sell it and
 still have the asset in your hands at the same worth.  "How can that be?  If
 it's an asset it must have a physical presence somewhere?"  Ditch that old
 industrial age attitude and face the new reality.  The question becomes:
Did Ken have possession of the list while he worked for the magazine?
 Probably.  When the magazine was sold, did the new owners receive the mailing
 list?  Probably.  Was the value of their magazine degraded by the fact that
 someone else had their mailing list?  Probably not.  So if they didn't
 specifically ask for all copies of the mailing list and absolute exclusivity
 to it, did Ken do anything wrong?  Probably not.
Right now, some person is scanning this newsgroup collecting our names, email
 addresses, interests, etc.  He/She will sell this information without or
 permission, nor needing it.  Does that seem right?  No.  Legal?  Absolutely!
So what is my final analysis?  Some people will be offended by Ken using this
 information for his own purposes.  Personally, Ken is using information he has
 obtained to send me material which data has shown I MAY be highly interested
 in.
This is still far better than the lousy spammer who will use my e-mail address
 from a play-by-mail group to send me XXX website listings and MLM schemes.  I
 am positively sure that what I get in the mail from Ken is legal to possess in
 all 50 states.  I've actually had a german email address send me unsolicited
 bestialism porn which I reformatted my hard drive to make sure no trace of it
 remained, so try to keep things in perspective here.

Matt

References

Re: PBM-Aid for American Flagship
lindahl@pbm.com (Greg Lindahl)
Tue, 28 Oct 1997 00:00:00 +0000

Referenced By

Re: PBM-Aid for American Flagship
lindahl@pbm.com (Greg Lindahl)
Tue, 28 Oct 1997 00:00:00 +0000