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AOL/Time-Warner Won't Advertise Competition
mojo-raisin writes: "According to this article on ISPworld, AOL/Time-Warner is refusing to run advertisments for small and medium-sized dial-up and DSL service providers on their cable network. This practice is reported to have begun shortly after the merger announcement last year, and is taking place in New York, Texas and Wisconsin."
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Forget Napster. Why not really break the law?
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
So, your community *is* getting money from the cable company that is roughly tied to the size of the subscriber base (if they're not getting this money, then your community employs the most ignorant contract negotiators in the world.)
That being said, I still prefer DBS...
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"What's to say that a bunch of poor people can't all buy stock and vote as a block?"
The idea that people shouldn't have to buy power with money. That's why we have governments - to equally represent all people. Poor people would much rather be *feeding* and *clothing* themselves than fighting off mega corporations.
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
Yeah, Comcast won't plug on DTV, but you know what you get instead? DirectTV ads. Yes, they plug themselves. Primestar, TCI, Dish Network.... everybody does it. It's their service, they can do it if they want to. (The interesting bit is that if you happen to have cable and dish running side by side on the same channel, you'll notice that the cable company plugs and the dish company plugs occur in the same slot of time).
This is primarily geared for people like myself, who don't have cable or satellite service. Unlike most people, I don't want it or need it- but say I'm at a friend's house and we happen to be watching Doctor Who on BBC America. The DTV plug comes up and I realize, "hey! If *I* get DTV, I can watch Doctor Who!" It's incidental advertising, targeting not the actual person paying for the service, but those who aren't who happen to be "using" it anyway.
So from that standpoint, with AOL on the ISP end and Time Warner running the pipes, it seems to me that disavowing local ISPs to advertise makes perfect sense. Do you see Dish Network ads on DirectTV? Earthlink banner ads on the Stargate web site?
Yeah, it may suck- but the local companies still have the local stations and radio to advertise on.
This could become a BIG problem. Just think about it. AOL/Time warner have a lot of things under there control. What if they told CNN they could not run stories that made AOL/Time Worner look bad. The effects of this merger are just now being seen but I think they could get A LOT worse than refusing air time to competitors. This is one mega company that we should keep a very close eye on and hope the Bush administration will support the people who are hurt by these type of business practices. Only time will see.
"If ignorance is bliss, why aren't there more happy people in the world?"
Except that an ISP isn't a Cable TV or a telephone service.
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Free Mac Mini
The Mormons do not advertise for the Baptists.
It's common practice to not shoot yourself in the foot.
Yes this leads to biased journalism, but the media has been this way since the old Newspaper Barons.
This is hardly newsworthy.
And if MS refuses to advertise AOL on their Windows desktop, all of a sudden it becomes illegal to do so, they're abusing their monopoly power, antitrust violation, etc.
You think MS is Dr evil? They're just "mini Me" compared to the others.
No stake except that their golfing buddies and relatives are still heavily invested. Not to mention campaign contributors. Who do you think gave Bush enough money to edge out McCain in the first place? From my informal sense of public opinion, McCain wouldn't have needed the Republican appointees on the Supreme Court to hand him the presidency. He would have handily crushed Al Gore.
If you honestly believe that after years of living with, working with, and hanging out with oil industry moguls and having an immense personal stake (even if it now "sold") in the oil industry that Bush and Cheney are anywhere near approaching objective on the issue of oil, then you are seriously delusional. Of course, as Americans, we all have a stake in the oil industry. Without oil we wouldn't even have server farms to worry about during blackouts, or SUV's, or highway systems to drive them on. Okay, well we might have them, but not at the incredible prices we have them now. I mean a gallon of gas costs less than a gallon of milk-- that's a bargain.
I do not have a signature
Especially when so many huge media corporations are merging and taking each other to form such massive conglomerates, a strong government watchdog is needed to prevent these abuses of power. If AOL/Time Warner are allowed to get away with this, then they are basically being allowed to suppress their competition, and what kind of free market supports this? No kind at all.
The free market ideal that American culture reveres is only possible given a lack of monopolies and informed consumers. Here we have the worst of both worlds - a near-monopoly ensuring that consumers are ill-informed! And since other companies are just as bad, the only place we, the people, can turn to is the government. It is their duty to ensure that our needs are put first, rather than those of the corporate warlords.
Unfortunately, I somehow doubt Bush will see it that way. He's all for corporate power and unaccountability - just look at how so much of America's War on Drugs is now persued by private companies unaccountable to the electorate. Remember - you can vote to change your government, but you can't do anything to change a corporation.
I've been corrected by a Randite drone. How awful.
Bullshit! What we need is for people to take responsibility for their own lives.
Since the government represents the people, that's what I was talking about. Still, nice attempt at a strawman.
What is wrong with a corporation deciding how to use its own property?
When that usage is detrimental to people? Or do you believe that corporations are better than people? Oh wait, you probably do if you're spouting Randite crap at me. So it's alright for corporations to pollute then, because it's "how they use their own property"?
Is Budwiser going to start placing Miller Lite ads on it's beer cans? Of course not. But by your argument, the government should step in and force such things to happen.
*sigh* Strawman. Again. Budweiser is not in the advertising business now is it? Since media corporations have such a huge influence on society, it is only right that government ensures their fairness. Just look at the most respected news source on the planet - the BBC. A publicly-run organisation!
Oh, and you forgot to mention "jack-booted thugs" in your tirade.
It is the government's first and foremost duty to protect the constitutional rights of the individual against the tyranny of the majority. Unfortunately, the government has failed at even this.
And equally so, it is their duty to protect the rights of the majority against the tyranny of the capitalist elite. Because since the US is so profit-driven, majority is defined in terms of monetary value, and the "majority" is actually those who control 5% of the population and over half of its wealth.
And yet, the government has failed in this duty, thanks to fools like you that think "wealth creation" is some kind of sacred goal to be valued above all else, even things like human dignity.
Remember that there is no such dichotomy as "human rights" versus "property rights."
Yup, one is worth fighting for, the other is a byproduct of a capitalist society.
No human rights can exist without property rights.
Translation: if you don't own anything, you have no rights. Those that own more, have more rights to do as they please.
Since material goods are produced by the mind and effort of individual men, and are needed to sustain their lives, if the producer does not own the result of his effort, he does not own his life.
In your ideal society, please explain to me how wage slavery would be prevented.
To deny property rights means to turn men into property owned by the state. Whoever claims the "right" to "redistribute" the wealth produced by others is claiming the "right" to treat human beings as chattel.
No, because people have fundamental rights irrespective of whether or not they own property. Only Randroid nuts like you would think otherwise. By your reckoning the homeless, refugees and hunter-gatherer tribes do not have any rights, such as the right to life. What self-serving bullshit.
It's a great philosophy for people with plenty of resources and a lack of empathy for other people. Thankfully, most people aren't that cold.
More troublesome is the fact that AOL/TW is blocking content from Joe User because Joe User's sponsor is barred by AOL/TW. "Last fall, Time Warner refused to let Westlake High use one of its channels to rebroadcast football games if Texas.Net continued as an advertiser (for Westlake High). Texas.net had advertised with Time Warner for several years prior to the fall of 2000 only to be told that Time Warner would not renew Westlake High School's TV contract if Texas.net was a sponsor."
This seems to be illegal because now AOL/TW are telling User X that their sponsors have to first be subject to AOL/TW approval. Talk about a present and long-term potential abuse of monopoly power. What other roadblocks will AOL/TW impose on people/organizations who want to use their network when they're the only game in town?
All in all, not surprising - is anyone surprised when large companies do this sort of thing?
Cheers.
The idea here is to raise the bariers to market entry. Over the last decade, it had become extremely easy to setup an ISP. The costs associated with such entry into the market were vary small. There's even a Linux HowTo for setting up an ISP.
The goal of the AOL policy is to make it more difficult for indeviduals and smaller competitors to grow and flourish in this market. As the saying goes "Keep ypur friends close, and your enemies closer". With that in mind, allow large players to continue to advertise and operate effectively in the market (to avoid such annoyances as antitrust suits) and squeeze small players out. That way you know exactly who your competition is.
Much as in the telecom industry, the biggest threats come from the small operator who develops and provides the killer app/service. It's sough to keep track of such small operators so instead, raise the bariers to entry into the market to such a degree that small operators can no longer compete, while allowing larger players (that are easy to keep track of) continue to compete. This is just good business, and as much as it pains me to say this, as far as I know, AOL/Time Warner is within their rights to refuse advertising. They can do business or not do business with whomever they please.
--CTH
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Now to grind my own personal axe. Has anyone seen Headline News since the merger? It used to be a dependable source of real news. Now they have co-anchors, tell me who's having a birthday and spend 5 of their 30 minutes telling me what movies are going to be on TV tonight!!! The other night I saw a tech consultant (you can't pay attention to them, except for entertainment) that I thought they said was from AOL. Maybe we should call Bernard Shaw out of retirement. HE'd never allow this to continue.
I spent a year in Iraq looking for WMD and all I found was this lousy sig.
These big corporations are getting way too much power. AOL is the most popular ISP in the nation, and Time-Warner - well, they own everything Disney doesn't. If AOL-Time-Warner starts refusing to allow competitors to advertise, how long will it be before they realize they can also refuse to air any news they don't like? OR ads for politicians they don't like? And what will keep AOL from banning its users from accessing the sites of competitors? Remember, Bush is a very good friend of big business. He'd probably let them get away with this.
This is very disturbing stuff. We have protection against government censorship, but what protection fo we have from corporate censorship?
I'm the stranger...posting to
Wouldn't this violate common carriage? I believe the US still has this practice and has applied it to cable TV and telephone service.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.