Amcnc.1016 net.news utcsrgv!utzoo!decvax!duke!mcnc!jte Wed Jan 20 22:22:55 1982 Marketing research Re: Marty Shannon's objections to the Unix/Decnet enquiry Decvax's or any other Usenet node's resposibility lies only in that they do not transfer illegal (obscene) or unwanted data over the phone lines into another site's machine. If Duke is willing to receive a marketing research form, then "Usenet" has no say about that. If mhtsa is not so willing, decvax's only responsibility is to not thwart mhtsa's refusal of the item. I see no legal problems except those internal to an organization concerning whether or not they should accept such news. I will agree there is a difference between news items and marketing or advertising. A note such as Yes, Scribe is available for Unix from Scribble, Inc. is much different from a 3-screen Buy Now & Save ad, but \neither is illegal/. Historically, the users of Usenet have felt the latter to be less desirable. Suppose we had a group "net.ad" for advertisements? Aside from the not-another-newsgroup flames, if sites were interested in what was submitted, what is your objection? In fact, we would only run into legality questions if we figured out a way to charge for such submissions! \Then/ we would finally have to address the question of where to draw the line between private vs commercial. James Ellis (mcnc!jte) ----------------------------------------------------------------- gopher://quux.org/ conversion by John Goerzen of http://communication.ucsd.edu/A-News/ This Usenet Oldnews Archive article may be copied and distributed freely, provided: 1. There is no money collected for the text(s) of the articles. 2. The following notice remains appended to each copy: The Usenet Oldnews Archive: Compilation Copyright (C) 1981, 1996 Bruce Jones, Henry Spencer, David Wiseman.