The BadAds Weblog: April 2001

Targeted in a Taxi

Ah, the big city. Bright lights, exciting sounds – and ads, ads everywhere, blaring from lighted billboards, screaming from the sides of buses, being shoved into your hands by underemployed college students out to make a buck. You duck into a cab, looking forward to savoring a few ad-free moments...

Not so fast. To learn about all the ways that you can now be targeted in a taxi, from multimedia ads to promotional speeches from the driver, read this article on Media Life.

What you can do: If you're subjected to ads in a taxi, complain to the driver. If you're feeling really motivated, you can write a letter to the taxicab company to let them know that you don't appreciate being a captive audience for ads.

April 24, 2001

Ruined Anti-Spam Bill

Internet subscribers world-wide are unwittingly paying an estimated $9 billion per year in connection costs just to receive "junk" e-mails, according to a study undertaken for the European Commission. We're calling this the "Spam Tax."

Section 5(b) of a bill recently introduced in the House, the Unsolicited Commercial Electronic Mail Act of 2001 (HR 718), would allow corporations and ISPs to post notices on their mail servers that spam is unwelcome, and spammers would have to obey these signs by not sending spam to that domain.

Unfortunately, the direct marketing lobby (and their friends in the banking industry) have decided they want to be able to spam the world's e-mail servers into submission, and convinced the House Energy & Commerce Committee to change Section 5(b) into a complete mess, which the anti-spam community now opposes.

Fairness demands that Congress allow network owners to protect their networks – and their customers – from the Spam Tax. You can help by contacting your representative and telling him or her to give network owners the chance to avoid cost-shifting, intrusive spam by putting Section 5(b) back the way it was when it was introduced.

You can find contact information for your representative here. Enter your zip code and you'll get contact information for your two senators and one representative. Click on your representative's name, and you'll be taken to his or her Web site, where you may find additional contact information such as an e-mail address or fax number.

Please note that when you write to your representative, you must include your full mailing address and your phone number. The level of attention your message will receive depends on how you send it. Phone calls are the most effective way to get your message across, then snail mail letters, then faxes, then e-mail.

Please let us know if you get a response from your representative!

April 3, 2001

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