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Registrar Told To Stop Direct-Mail Scare-Tactics
kiwimate writes "This article says the Domain Registry of Europe has been ordered by the Advertising Standards Authority to cease and desist on a direct mail campaign that was "distressing and intimdating to recipients" and "misleadingly exaggerated the importance and status of its content". The letter suggested that domain names should be renewed at least 30 days before they expired, and gave recipients an easy option of renewing through the DR of E. Having had to deal with this from an almost identically named company in America, the quoted phrases don't seem nearly as sneaky and dirty as some I've seen, but it's good to see a precedent."
Cross out your address and write on the envelope:
Return to sender
I usually also write one the back something like:
We do not accept mail from fraudulant or misleading sources.
I'm not sure if I'm accomplishing anything, but it makes me feel better. It might even cost them a couple cents!
This user account is inactive account replaced by the PDA
Maybe it's a precedent in Europe, but if you're in America, that's worth about as much as a precedent on Mars.
That's a good thing; imagine if judges could whack you with "precedents" established by Slobodan Milosevic, Pol Pot, Chairman Mao, et al...
Oh, wait. They do want to do that. It's called the ICC. Heh heh.
You have a point. I think everyone, to some extent, has double standards. It is unfortunate that we often let our world views cloud our judgement instead of trying to view all sides of an issue.
That being said I take issue with your comparrison. I think that there is a huge difference between governments limiting/restricting/not being happy with use of something like the GPL and spam. Using the GPL for your own code is a choice. If it doesn't make sense for company X to use the GPL they shouldn't. If their stuff is good enough (or their maketing department is swift enough) they will sell allot of it. If their stuff sucks (and they have a bad marketing department) they will go out of business. Because this is the case the use of the GPL will be governed in a broad sense by people making marginal decisions. If the benefits of using the GPL outweigh the costs it will be used, if the costs are to high it won't be. The one exception to this is government software. The use of the GPL in government software/government contracts is a policy issue. Open discussion and passionate debate about policy is always a good thing.
Spam differs from the GPL in that one doesn't get to choose spam. It just comes to you. Spam is something that the consumer (ie the guy receiving spam) really doesn't have a say in. Much of this is because the economics of spam don't have much of a concept of scale. Manufacturing 10,000 spam messages or 1,000,000 spam messages has a much different price tradeoff than manufacturing 10,000 cars vs. 1,000,000 cars. In this sense spam and the GPL fall into two very different catergories.
I think the best way to sum this up is by using an analogy. The GPL (whether in a half baked sceme or not) and other licenses are like cars. There are some good cars and some bad cars. Yet government doesn't tell you which car to buy even though they may have a preference (ie domestic v. foreign).* Spam is like pollution. I don't know of anyone who enjoys breathing smoggy air. Like spam, pollution isn't a problem each of us can solve on our own. Sure we can purchase masks (spam filters) but that doesn't get rid of the underlying unpleasantry. This is a case where limited, focussed government intervention would probably be a good thing.
The preceding comments are not meant to support any specific government policy or action. They are merely my off the cuff ramblings on a public policy debate I am probably not qualified to participate in. You gotta love free speach...
*Just to counter the "but cars are regulated. Thing of safety and pollution" arguement I'd like to point out that there are legal restrictions on liscenses in the form of applicable contract law. (ie you can't have a liscense that forces someone to do something illegal.)
Never disturb your enemy while he is busy making a mistake.
Domain Registry of America does the same thing. They actually bagged my wife with their scam. She was being a sweetie by trying to keep my domain from being lost and paid the "bill". I had to look at the thing twice myself to make sure it was fake -- it does look "official."
Of course, I was suspicious because my domain wasn't due to expire for 6 months and wasn't registered with them in the first place. Took me months to get my money back.
DRoA are A**holes.
The registrars need to allow you to put a "lock" on your domain names the same way the phone compnaies allow you to lock your service, so you don't get "slammed".
load "windows7"
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