Sender: "W. Curtiss Priest" <•••@••.•••> October 20, 1995 CITS Observations on attached article: Dr. W. Curtiss Priest This upcoming program reveals a facet to the information highway that sounds Orwellian -- subscribers to Prodigy, AOL, etc. are having their "every move" recorded. The reason? To better sell to you. Indeed, retailers want to move beyond direct mail and telemarketing. While these efforts are also based on recording your "every move" -- e.g. American Express purchased Xylogics so the high-tech company could use parallel processing to analyze the buying patterns of all of American Express' credit card users -- the retailers are still searching for the magic bullet of direct sales. Is this good or bad? Those concerned with privacy will be very upset and those wishing that direct marketing were "better targeted" will be pleased. It is quite surprising how much "free" information is available on the Internet. The New York Times puts out their daily 8-10 page newspaper that anyone can read with a web browser and a copy of Adobe's Acrobat (http://nytimesfax.com). The attached article was available for "free" from Individual (http:www.newspage.com). Why do I put quotes around "free?" Because I don't believe these companies are philanthropists and they expect that these give-aways will produce revenues. For example, while this article was "free" -- others are not -- especially where the sources consider their articles to be more "saleable." So it should be interesting to hear what Robert Krulwich has to present on this subject on the 31st. ************************************************************************** NOTICE: Contains copyrighted material, do not redistribute unless you abide to the copyright notice appearing at the end of this article. As provided for under Section 107 of the 1976 Copyright Law, the following piece is being distributed for non-profit purposes and for comment, criticism, and teaching. In cases where the purpose of conveying information is to fully inform the reader, the entire body of the work is reproduced. Should you wish to convey this material, in the same spirit, you are free to do so. ****************************Advertisement******************************** This newswire was delivered via Individual, Inc. Subscriptions to the Individual can be received by calling 1-800-414-1000 You may visit their web page at http://www.newspage.com ****************************Advertisement******************************** FRONTLINE PROBES BIG BUSINESS INVESTMENT IN CYBERSPACE Source: Business Wire BOSTON--(BUSINESS WIRE) via NewsPage -- Why are many of America's richest companies spending billions to construct an Information Superhighway to your door? Experts forecast interactive services and video-on-demand can never generate enough revenue to justify the price to build and maintain the electronic infrastructure. So, with no immediate profit in sight, why are these companies willing to foot the bill? In "High Stakes in Cyberspace," airing Tuesday, Oct. 31, at 9 p.m., on PBS (check local listings), FRONTLINE looks beyond the hype of interactive networks to examine the social and cultural impacts of cyber-commerce and to determine what big business has to gain. Correspondent Robert Krulwich interviews the people usually in the background of this story: the venture capitalists who sense a great business opportunity; the software designers who are creating programs for advertisers to reach specific consumers based on their known activities; and the advertisers who hope to exploit this intimate knowledge of consumer habits. "One of the most remarkable facts about the Information Revolution is the dramatic impact it will have on virtually every facet of our lives, yet there is almost no discussion of what those changes will mean," says producer Martin Koughan. "We may not become aware of the seismic effects this revolution will have on commerce, jobs, government, personal relationships and the like until after these systems are in place." The program examines how advertising revenue will make cyberspace a powerful draw to the business world and how interactive computers will provide advertisers with quick and accurate marketing information directly from the consumer. Until recently, only gross demographics highlighting trends have been available to help sell products. Now, when America goes online, marketers are able to keep track of the buying behaviors of individual consumers. Consumers leave a digital footprint everywhere they go online, enabling marketers to trace consumer attitudes, preferences and buying habits like never before. "If you connect through America Online, America Online knows everything about you. Or Prodigy or CompuServe. Those guys know basically everything," says Terry Myerson, whose company, Interse, develops marketing software. "As the user interacts, we not only can watch them to see what they're looking at, but how they are moving through your sales cycle....We can watch this happen in real time if you want, we can watch these customers move through your information." Other companies are more direct, asking on-line users to supply information on their preferences and habits before interacting with an on-line site. Correspondent Krulwich visits the World Wide Web homepage of Zima, a new beverage from the Coors Brewing Company. The company has created "Tribe Z" -- an on-line "hangout" which uses hip graphics and slang to attract Generation Xers. Before entering Tribe Z, the on-line user provides Coors with information on their preferred alcoholic beverage, their amount of consumption and their age, and then is cleared to click and to surf through layers of cyber-advertising. Word of "cool" websites spreads like wildfire on the Internet; the company hopes to become a cult favorite of young on-line users, giving them an instantly accessible target population at low cost. But while companies are spending billions to secure their presence on the superhighway, no one has made any real money yet. Last year, the total value of all on-line transactions through the Internet was only $40 million. Even if the market grows 2500%, it will still be less than the value of the American blowdryer market. So, why the race to settle cyberspace? Many companies are fearful of the revolution happening around them, worried that new technologies will crossover into their realm and replace their core businesses -- especially if their core business is information. Newspaper publishing is one industry trying to find a place in this cyber-domain. In an effort to ensure its identity as an information source, the Washington Post recently announced a new on-line life-style magazine, Digital Ink, which will serve as a resource for restaurant, museum and entertainment information as well as a digital classified page. The paper is clearly taking advantage of the new technology to provide a service, but it provides it with the knowledge that if it doesn't do it, someone else will. "It's clear that this [information superhighway] opens up exciting new possibilities. It's also quite unclear what is going to happen in the next twenty years," says Donald Graham, publisher of the Washington Post. "It's part defense and part opportunity if you look at it from the newspaper's point of view." In the new cyber-reality, companies fear a blurring of technologies where phone companies can provide the same information newspapers now provide, and television can replace telephone. But there are those who worry about the societal implications of the new cyber-reality. "You don't get something for nothing, and there's a big price to be paid in the information age, and one of those prices is privacy," says Margie Wylie, an editor at Digital Media. "Think of the Information Superhighway as being more like the sort of toll road where they not only want your fifty cents, but they want to know what car you drive, whether you fit the criteria, and whether or not you can get your car on the road will really depend on the gatekeeper." "High Stakes in Cyberspace" is produced by Martin Koughan and Frank Koughan. The correspondent is Robert Krulwich. The senior producer for FRONTLINE is Michael Sullivan. FRONTLINE is produced by a consortium of public television stations: WGBH Boston, WTVS Detroit, WPBT Miami, WNET New York, KCTS Seattle. Funding for FRONTLINE is provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and public television viewers. FRONTLINE is closed-captioned for deaf and hard-of-hearing viewers. FRONTLINE press materials and comprehensive resources compiled for this program can be accessed through the World Wide Web at http://www.wgbh.org/frontline. The executive producer for FRONTLINE is David Fanning. CONTACT: Jim Bracciale, •••@••.••• 617/783-3500 | Diane Hebert, •••@••.••• | Eileen Warren, •••@••.••• [10-25-95 at 17:23 EDT, Business Wire] *************************************************** Copyright Notice: This article is protected under copyright law. The right to disseminate this article is also protected under copyright law (Section 107, 1976 Act). The copyright law permits copying of materials for comment, criticism and nonprofit purposes under the protection of fair use. The copyright law also permits the copying of recent materials for the "teachable moment." This allows copying, in full, for educational purposes. Also, the courts generally interpret copyright protection by economic criteria. If the copying of a material reduces revenues to the copyright holder, the court usually decides in favor of the plaintiff; if the copying doesn't effect or increases the revenues, the court usually decides on behalf of the defendent. In the case of News Wire Services, where the submitter of the information pays for the placement, we judge the wider dissemination of their news story to bring greater readership and thus increase the value of their advertisement, value which also adheres to the wire service itself. With regard to the retailer of the information, in this case Individual, we are uncertain what rights pertain, as Individual is not the holder of the copyright and the value added by Individual, via its indexing either via user profile or via web page topics, is not contained in the work. It is our opinion that Individual's recourse is to encourage the copyright holder to enforce its rights, should the holder so wish. Nonetheless, out of courtesy to the added value Individual provided we have included an advertisement, above, about where to obtain an Individual subscription. Thus, under fair use, teachable moment, and economic criteria we selectively convey this copyrighted material to others. ****************************************************** _______________________________________________________________________________ | W. Curtiss Priest, Ph.D., Director *********************** | | Center for Information, Technology, & Society * Improving humanity * | | * through technology * | | 466 Pleasant Street *********************** | | Melrose, MA 02176-4522 •••@••.••• | | VOICE: 617-662-4044 | | Fax: 617-662-6882 *** Gopher or WWW to our publications: gopher.eff.org | | (under Groups & Organizations Supporting the Online Community, CITS) | | WWW: gopher://gopher.eff.org/hh/Groups/CITS | |Policy & Systems Division, Educational Products Information Exchange (EPIE) | | Over 16,000 K12 educational software programs catalogued on CD-ROM | |Dean of Computer & Information Sciences, Athena Virtual Online University | | Visit Athena(VOU):Telnet to athena.edu 8888 | http://www.athena.edu| |A member of LINCT (Learning and Information Networks for Community | | Telecomputing) | _____________________________________________________________________________| @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ Sender: Karl Beiser <•••@••.•••> On Thu, 26 Oct 1995, W. Curtiss Priest wrote: > This upcoming program reveals a facet to the information highway > that sounds Orwellian -- subscribers to Prodigy, AOL, etc. are > having their "every move" recorded. The reason? To better sell > to you. "Orwellian"? AOL, Prodigy, etc. are commercial services. They make money based on how many people choose to use their services. It is no more Orwellian of them to study what is used and how much it is used with the aim of selling more stuff more effectively than it is for supermarkets or department stores to carry on the same research and marketing efforts. It is pretty easy for firms to go off the deep end into offensive intrusions -- but public embarrassment works to curb abuses most of the time. To paraphrase, if you can't stand the marketing, get out of the marketplace. > It is quite surprising how much "free" information is available on > the Internet. The New York Times puts out their daily 8-10 > page newspaper that anyone can read with a web browser and a > copy of Adobe's Acrobat (http://nytimesfax.com). Rarely will a for-profit enterprise do something totally without any consideration of self-interest. Good public relations, development of a favorable public image, can be a compelling justification for doing public-spirited things. This approach is to be encouraged, I think. Where it verges into more blatant promotion, it is up to each of us to decide what to use and how. The best way to respond to an organization attempting to trade insufficient value for your attention is to ignore them -- after you tell them why you are going to ignore them. from news release: > But while companies are spending billions to secure their presence on > the superhighway, no one has made any real money yet. Last year, the > total value of all on-line transactions through the Internet was only > $40 million. Even if the market grows 2500%, it will still be less > than the value of the American blowdryer market. So, why the race to > settle cyberspace? Many people will loose a great deal of money in stupid ways. For them, the Internet metaphor will be that of the bottomless money pit. Folks with egregiously intrusive approaches will find failure quite readily. > "It's clear that this [information superhighway] opens up exciting new > possibilities. It's also quite unclear what is going to happen in the > next twenty years," says Donald Graham, publisher of the Washington > Post. "It's part defense and part opportunity if you look at it from > the newspaper's point of view." And from the point of view of almost every corporation and social institution... > "You don't get something for nothing, and there's a big price to be > paid in the information age, and one of those prices is privacy," says > Margie Wylie, an editor at Digital Media. "Think of the Information > Superhighway as being more like the sort of toll road where they not > only want your fifty cents, but they want to know what car you drive, > whether you fit the criteria, and whether or not you can get your car > on the road will really depend on the gatekeeper." Here is a fundamental error. What Frontline will be looking at is not the price to get on the highway, but rather the price to get into the movie theater, to use the amusement park or to park the car. Privacy and economic issues primarily arise at sites rather than at connection points. If you don't want your actions analyzed, avoid sites that do that. Don't answer their Web questionnaires. Get a generic Internet connection rather than signing onto a commercial online service. The road may carry a toll in the form of connect charges, but it is commercial service hosts that are tempted to go overboard. My $.04 worth... Karl Beiser ~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~-~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~ Posted by Andrew Oram - •••@••.••• - Moderator: CYBER-RIGHTS (CPSR) You are encouraged to forward and cross-post messages for non-commercial use, pursuant to any redistribution restrictions included in individual messages. ~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~-~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~
