Re: Can we call off this advertising before it gets out of hand?

From: Troy Rollo <troy_at_cbme.unsw.EDU.AU>
Date: Tue, 12 Oct 1993 08:11:08 GMT
Message-ID: <1993Oct12.081108.28443_at_usage.csd.unsw.OZ.AU>


From article <1993Oct11.204815.19242_at_rossinc.com>, by dgh_at_rossinc.com (David Harrington):
> This is just my point. I don't see anything wrong w/ Joe from Borland
> giving a few tips on a Borland product the net, just because he works for
> Borland...

Agreed - if somebody asks a question about a Borland product, somebody from Borland posting the answer would be acceptable and appropriate.

However, if somebody from Borland were to post to the net recommending Paradox every time somebody asked on comp.databases "Can somebody recommend a good database that runs under Windows?", and then Microsoft followed suit and posted about FoxPro and Access, that would be a totally different story.

> Now, I would have a problem if he said "Look, PDOX40 is way cool.... and
> if you send me $500, I'll tell you why" :-)

Well considering the 3 articles in question, this is pretty much what happened. Certainly they weren't asking for money for their recommendations, but they were employees of 2 database access tools vendors attempting to get people reading the newsgroups to pay attention to their products. They were not, by any stretch of the imagination, giving tips on using their products.

-- 
_______________________________________________________________________________
troy_at_cbme.unsw.EDU.AU	      Overworked, overcommited and always multitasking.
Opinions expressed are not those of the CBME or UNSW, but are my opinions only.
Received on Tue Oct 12 1993 - 09:11:08 CET

Original text of this message