The BadAds Weblog: October 2002

Pokemon, Yu-Gi-Oh . . . Wan Giri?

Here's one Japanese cultural trend that the U.S. would do well to avoid: wan giri, or "one-ring hang-ups."

As reported in the October 5, 2002 issue of The Economist, unscrupulous advertisers have found a new technique to harass Japan's millions of mobile phone users. Operators place thousands of phone calls from normal phone lines, let the phone ring once, and hang up. If the curious recipients dial back to find out who placed the call, they find themselves unexpectedly listening to advertisements for Internet services or chat rooms.

This past summer, phone exchanges in Osaka, the country's second-largest city, were jammed for four hours as phone spammers placed up to 3,100 calls per minute – more than twice the city's normal volume.

Making large numbers of phone calls isn't against the law, but NTT, one of Japan's largest phone companies, has introduced a couple of solutions for irritated phone owners. One service allows users to punch in the phone number of the wan giri, and once registered the phone spammer will be charged for each subsequent outgoing call that goes unanswered.

Another product silences the first ring of incoming calls. Wan giri operators can simply ring twice, but at least their assault on the Japanese public will be slowed.

October 25, 2002

Admin Warning: Your System Has Been Infiltrated

Before reading this BadAds update, users of Windows 2000, NT, and XP should reach for their manual and disable the Messenger service on their computer.

All set? Good – now maybe we won't be interrupted by a brazen new form of spam that disguises itself as pop-up admin alerts from your network operator. Brian Williams, in an October 15th article on Wired News, assigns blame for many of these ads to software created and sold by DirectAdvertiser.com. The software, which sends out up to 5,000 ads per hour, enters unblocked networking ports and uses Messenger to deliver "completely anonymous and virtually untraceable" ads.

Williams says that DirectAdvertiser.com founder Zoltan Kovacs touts the software as ideal for advertising 900-number and other telephone services, largely because the pop-ups cannot include links in the current version of the software. Kovacs also boasts that his software is better than e-mail because spam laws do not cover this particular form of abuse of other people's computers.

The DirectAdvertiser.com Web site includes this curious note: "Please do not use this software for spamming. If you do so, you will take full responsibility for your actions. This software is made to send advertising or system messages to your own network." The insincerity of this notice is revealed by the screenshot of the software, which offers the user a target list of ISPs in Thailand, Tonga, Tunisia, and Trinidad-Tobago. Oh, you mean your network doesn't span the entire globe? How unusual....

In case you need further evidence, Kovacs also markets a program called StealthMail Master, which promises to hide the IP addresses of bulk e-mailers.

WhoIs lists a contact address for DirectAdvertiser.com in Romania and a phone number in Montana, so we're not sure where you can direct complaints about these yobbos. You can try to reach them through the contacts listed on their site (Phone: 800-323-2146 or 866-691-7978, Fax: 800-323-2145, E-mail: support@directadvertiser.com), but we recommend caution when contacting a known spammer. Best use a throw-away address such as Hotmail and dial from a payphone. We'd hate to see your household or office infected.

October 18, 2002

Today's Lesson: Everything Has Its Price

Schools have become so commercialized over the past decade that many media no longer report on each individual offense – thus leaving parents in the dark about who's chasing their children at school.

That's one of the findings of Alex Molnar, professor of Education Policy Studies and director of the Education Policy Studies Laboratory (EPSL) at Arizona State University. Molnar authors an annual report on schoolhouse commercialism to monitor eight categories of intrusive behavior:

1. Sponsorship of programs and activities
2. Exclusive agreements, as when soda companies contractually block out competitors' products
3. Incentive programs, which reward student activity with commercial products
4. Appropriation of space
5. Sponsorship of educational materials, such as course curricula that advance corporate interests
6. Electronic marketing
7. Privatization
8. Fund-raising programs

The forty-page report, along with an executive summary, is available in both Word and PDF formats. (Scan the archives column on the right-hand side of the page. The Word format is inaccessible through Netscape on a Mac because Web designers forget such users exist.)

In his report, Molnar has gathered dozens of examples of school-based commercialism that boggle the mind, such as a November 2001 fund-raiser in which teachers from 230 Southern California schools worked at McDonald's for part of the day in exchange for 20 percent of that day's sales.

What's worse than educators agreeing to take orders when they should be teaching is school boards and principals that view corporate involvement as an acceptable way to fund programs and activities. John Kellmayer, superintendent for the Brooklawn, NJ school that sold naming rights for its gym to a ShopRite supermarket, acknowledged that the sell-out represented "the privatization of public responsibility," but went on to say, "You hope children can become sophisticated enough to deal with it."

Molnar's response is cutting: "Such 'sophistication' may have its price, however. We might just as well say that we hope our children become cynical enough to dismiss such adult behavior with a wink and a nod. At a time when adults talk at length about the need to teach virtue and character in the schools, incidents such as these teach children volumes about what adults actually mean by 'virtue' and 'character.'"

Ideally, schools should neither ask for nor accept corporate donations or sponsorships. If schools can't afford a program, they should either cut it or shame the host municipality into coughing up the funds. Corporate Johns have plenty of dough to throw at desperate schools – schools that have been starved by the shift of property tax burdens from businesses to individuals – but schools should refrain from prostituting themselves or their students and stick to their reason for being: education.

October 16, 2002

Cops on the Take, Legally

What's black and white with ads all over? Police cars around the nation if Government Acquisitions LLC, a marketing firm in Charlotte, North Carolina, has its way.

As Daniel Wood explains in an October 2002 story in the Christian Science Monitor, Government Acquisitions plans to offer impoverished police departments free, fully equipped police cars plastered with advertising and logos from corporate sponsors.

This breakthrough in irresponsible advertising is the work of Government Acquisitions managing partner Ken Allison, who – it may come as no surprise – previously arranged sponsorships for NASCAR. Said Allison in the CSM article, "Everybody wins. Cities get the extra protection they need, and businesses get a way to contribute to the local police." Alcohol, gaming, tobacco, or firearms are off limits, but sellers of any other product or service can "contribute" to those responsible for policing them.

Strangely, police officers seem comfortable with the thought of sitting in a rolling billboard. In an article in the Saint Petersburg Times, Captain David Duff of Dade City, Florida said, "We're not getting any new cars this year, so we thought this might be a way that we could bring in new vehicles." Duff mentioned that a product used by children would be a good sponsor for the school resource officer. (Heck, why not sponsor the officer as well? Officer Yu-Gi-Oh has a nice ring to it.)

Police Chief Sam Slay of Springfield, Florida has also reluctantly turned to Government Acquisitions. "We don't have property tax, we don't have sales tax, and we are very limited on state revenue sharing," said Slay. "I'll be honest and say I didn't like the idea at first, but from a practical standpoint this is something we just cannot ignore."

Daniel Wood also quoted Omaha, Nebraska city councilman Garry Gernandt as approving of sponsored police vehicles since it would save the city up to $1 million. Our graffiti van, stadium, and civic auditorium are already covered with ads, said Gernandt, so why not advertising on police cars "as long as it's done tastefully"?

Why not? Okay, BadAds readers, you tell them why not, perhaps by bringing up the fact that police acceptance of sponsors creates the appearance of misbehavior and the possibility of misjustice. If police departments need these vehicles as badly as they claim, let's convince them to turn elsewhere for funds, say to the city or county responsible for their creation in the first place. Sure, ads might save money now, but in the long run the overlapping of commerce and law enforcement will cost us far, far more.

Ken Allison
Government Acquisitions LLC
PO Box 481921
Charlotte, NC 28269-5319
Phone: 980-722-5555
E-mail: ken@gavpd.com

David Duff, operations chief
Dade City Police Department
38042 Pasco Avenue
Dade City, FL 33525
Phone: 352-521-1493
E-mail: dduff@dadecityfl.com

Garry Gernandt, city councilman
1819 Farnam Street, LC-1
Omaha, Nebraska 68183
Phone: 402-444-5522
E-mail: ggernandt@ci.omaha.ne.us

Sam Slay, police chief
Springfield Police Department
3529 E 3rd St
Panama City, Florida 32401
Phone: 850-872-7545

October 14, 2002

Money: the Mother's Milk of Intrusive Advertising

Folks in non-profit organizations face competing dilemmas when contemplating new products and services. On the one hand, because of limited donations from governmental, corporate, and private sources, they might need to scale back or delay new offerings. On the other hand, if an organization doesn't mind bartering away its integrity and independence, there's no end to the potential sponsorship funds at hand.

Keep your goals limited and focused, or put yourself on the market for a sugar daddy – which will it be?

The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) chose the latter option with its book "New Mother's Guide to Breastfeeding." Even though the Academy, which numbers 57,000 pediatricians and pediatric specialists among its members, has consistently recommended breast-feeding over formula, the AAP agreed to let the maker of Similac infant formula plant its name and teddy bear logo on 300,000 copies of the book.

Similac manufacturer Ross Products might distribute the books in promotional packages of free formula, but their plans aren't definite yet. (Packages of free formula that manufacturers distribute to hospitals – another intrusive advertising practice – are also discouraged by the AAP.)

In a New York Times article, Dr. Lawrence Gartner, chairman of the Academy's executive committee on breast-feeding, said, "For those of us who wrote the book, this is thievery." Gartner went on to say that any appearance of support by Ross Products diminishes the book's credibility.

Dr. Joe Sanders, the AAP's executive director, took the easy way out in his defense of the sellout, claiming that the Academy couldn't produce all the educational materials it would like to without corporate support. He added, "Ten years ago, this probably would not have been acceptable, but things change."

Newsflash to Dr. Sanders: Things don't change on their own; they change only when you change them.

While estimating that the Academy made up to $500,000 on the deal, Dr. Sanders claims that Ross Products had no influence on the book's content and that such imprinting is common in the medical field. He mentioned that pharmaceutical companies regularly pay to place their name and logos on medical textbooks, which are then distributed to students. "That is how I got to know the major pharmaceutical companies," he said. "They gave me some medical textbooks. Obviously the advertising works."

And that's precisely why Similac's logo should not appear on AAP books distributed to new mothers: the advertising works.

Drop Dr. Sanders a line to tell him that he himself presents the best argument against the Similac/AAP marketing deal.

Dr. Joe Sanders, executive director
The American Academy of Pediatrics
141 Northwest Point Boulevard
Elk Grove Village, IL 60007-1098
Phone: 847-434-7500
E-mail: jsanders@aap.org

October 9, 2002

A House of Questionable Ideas

Publishers have traditionally maintained separate editorial and advertising departments to avoid conflicts of interest. Editorial organizations such as the American Society of Magazine Editors stress that readers must be able to tell where the editorial ends and the advertising begins. From the ASME guidelines:

Magazines are successful only if readers trust the information and advice given. This trust can be broken all too easily – by either perception or reality. ASME has created these guidelines to ensure that the clear distinction between advertising and editorial content is never blurred.

In the real world, however, magazines are successful if they make money. And that's just what the titles owned by Southern Progress, a division of AOL Time Warner, are doing. Whereas ad pages in the magazine industry overall dropped 10 percent in the first half of 2001, Southern Progress titles – Southern Living, Southern Accents, Coastal Living, Cooking Light, Health, Sunset, and Progressive Farmer – fell a mere 1.5 percent, as reported in an October 1, 2002 article by Matthew Rose in the Wall Street Journal.

That small drop in advertising pages can likely be attributed to how chummy SP's editorial and advertising departments are, as can be observed in the "Idea Houses" featured roughly once a year in most SP publications. Manufacturers who commit to certain levels of advertising are rewarded with exclusive sponsorship of the furniture, paint, or other design elements in the Idea Houses. That means that the decorating of the Idea Houses is determined not by style, but by advertising.

The Idea Houses bring in "millions" in ad revenue, according to Scott Sheppard, executive vice president in charge of ad sales.

There are no guarantees that a product will be featured, but Southern Progress employees work hard to make it happen. "You have to be so diplomatic as [advertisers] are paying a huge dollar amount," says Mary McWilliams, former interior-design decorator for Southern Living, as quoted in Rose's article.

Southern Living also gives manufacturers advanced warning of products to be featured in the magazine. Readers complain when they can't find featured items, say editors, but such warning also allow manufacturers to change their ads for that issue – a practice that shopping-oriented magazines such as Lucky and InStyle avoid to maintain that separation between editorial and advertising.

Other evidence of Southern Living editorial/advertising crossovers that Rose cites include a deal with Walt Disney in exchange for featuring the magazine at Disney's annual Epcot International Flower and Garden Festival. In return for the exposure, Southern Living ran "a happy story [about an aspect of Epcot] in line with their editorial policy," according to Katy Moss Warner, former director of horticulture and environmental initiatives at Walt Disney World.

Additionally, Rose quotes Janice Hilscher, media research manager at GSD&M Advertising, as saying she's a "big fan" of Southern Living because "the editorial environment is so complementary to advertisers." Hilscher helped find Texas-based advertisers for a one-shot newsstand title called Southern Living Texas Vacations, a title for which she also created story ideas.

Perhaps you can let the head honcho at Southern Progress know how you feel about his company's efforts to further blur the line between advertising and the stuff we actually want to read.

Tom Angelillo, Chief Executive
Southern Progress Corporation
2100 Lakeshore Drive
Birmingham, AL 35209
Phone: 205-445-6000
E-mail: Tom_Angelillo@timeinc.com

October 7, 2002

FCC Asks for Comments on Telemarketing – Then Ducks

Telemarketing is a big business, and it's only grown larger over the years as technology has allowed for more calls at a faster rate. Predictive dialers call dozens of numbers at the same time on the assumption that a telemarketer will be able to speak when the call goes through; if not, the machine hangs up and leaves someone holding a dead line, worrying about burglars and ex-spouses staking out the house.

In a September 2002 "Notice of Proposed Rulemaking and Memorandum Opinion and Order" (NPRM), the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) noted that telemarketing calls over the past decade have increased from 18 million to 104 million per day, generating annual sales of more than $600 billion.

That's great for telemarketers – but terrible for human beings, who by and large are unhappy to receive advertising pitches by phone as evidenced by more than 11,000 complaints to the FCC about telemarketing practices over the past two years. Additionally, in February 2002, the FCC's revised fact sheet, "Unwanted Telephone Marketing Calls," received 162,000 hits versus a mere 5,400 hits for the second most popular Web page, "Charges on Your Phone Bill." (People are unhappy and eager to complain, mind you, yet still giving away $600 billion a year. Go figure.)

In its September NPRM, the FCC asked for public comment on the rules of telemarketing and the Commission's refusal ten years ago to create a national "do not call" list as proposed under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991 (TCPA). State "do not call" lists have proved extremely popular in recent years, with lists in Missouri, Indiana, and New York all having more than a million signees, which has prodded the FCC to reconsider its decision to rely solely on company-maintained "do not call" lists. Not all companies subscribe to the Direct Marketing Association's Telephone Preference Service after all, which forces individuals to "opt out" of telemarketing calls over and over again.

(Individuals who have not yet signed up with the DMA's "do not call, do not write, do not e-mail" lists may do so online. Irritatingly, the DMA charges $5 to register for their lists online, but they do include real world addresses.)

As for what the FCC wants from you, here's a partial list of topics to consider, all from the NPRM:

* "We note that, under the company-specific do-not-call approach, consumers must repeat their request not to be called on a case-by-case basis as calls are received. We seek comment on whether this approach is unreasonably burdensome for consumers. We also seek comment on how effective such requests have been in practice in preventing unwanted telephone solicitations."

* "We seek comment on what, if any, legitimate business or commercial speech interest is promoted by these calls [generated through predictive dialers]."

* "We seek comment on the extent to which telemarketing to wireless consumers exists today. Specifically, we seek comment on whether consumers receive solicitations on their wireless phones, and the nature and frequency of such solicitations."

* The FCC also seeks comment on possible interactions between existing state "do not call" lists and a possible national registry.

* "Finally, we seek comment on whether our rules should be modified to minimize unnecessary burdens on telemarketers."

You can file comments online or by mail to the following address:

Secretary Michael Powell
Federal Communications Commission
445 12th Street, SW
Washington, D. C. 20554

The FCC requests that four copies of mailed filings also be sent to:

Kelli Farmer
Federal Communications Commission
Room 4-C740
445 12th Street, SW
Washington, DC 20554

Reference "CG Docket No. 02-278 CC Docket No. 92-90" in your comments, and be sure to write by October 31, 2002 to meet the deadline for comments.

Telemarketers will have plenty to say on this topic, so don't let their voices be the only ones heard. Contact the FCC and tell them what you think.

Thanks to responsible BadAds reader Chris Hoofnagle, legislative counsel for Privacy.org, for bringing this to our attention.

P.S. We realize that calling for a federal "do not call" list might seem odd when we recently wrote about favoring individual action over government oversight, but sometimes government oversight is exactly what's needed. Telemarketers and spammers care little for the objections of those who receive unwanted pitches because they've already moved on to the next target. What's more, it's often difficult to tell who is making the pitch, where to direct your complaints, and how to stop the sales efforts. In such cases, you need an ally with a bit more weight behind your threats, thus our efforts to enlist support for the consumer against the corporations.

October 1, 2002

Back to the Main Page

Get the BadAds Weblog updates via e-mail! We'll keep you up-to-date on news in intrusive advertising, changes to BadAds.org, and new ways you can fight "ad creep."

You are the
[an error occurred while processing this directive] visitor
to draw the line on
intrusive advertising.

sunny-clams knoll Feel free to reprint
any of the text on
this site - just
include a link to
www.BadAds.org.

- - - - - - - - -
Web design
by NewsJobs.Net
Perl CGI & HTML Code
by LServ