It’s been too long since I’ve turned this forum over to reader e-mail, so here goes.
It’s been too long since I’ve turned this forum over to reader e-mail, so here goes:
A recent column about Stamps.com described its acceptable-use policy that threatens legal action against anyone who circumvents the company’s screening system to buy customized postage that depicts a celebrity or criminal – which is prohibited – and then brags about it publicly.
“I can’t believe that Stamps.com actually thinks that its non-publicize paragraph would stand up in court,” writes Jeff Janner. “I’m no lawyer, but I’m pretty sure that you can’t assign blame for your own failings onto someone else. With that clause, they could do away with any oversight of what’s being submitted and/or produced and then sue for damages if it becomes known that they are allowing such violations. . . . That said, I expect to see Microsoft start including a similar paragraph in all of its license agreements.”
My tut-tutting over the latest batch of campus music thieves having done their dirty deeds via Internet2 was overblown, according to one reader.
“Most students don’t know about Internet2, nor do they care,” writes Craig Paul, an IT professional at the University of Kansas. “They just access ‘the Internet’ and if the link is faster, so much the better. So all the fuss about Internet2 and stealing is a bit of a false alarm. Our commodity Internet connection is nearly as fast as our Internet2 connection!”
A column about ComputerRepair.com brought a number of criticisms from readers who dislike the idea of an online marketplace that requires IT professionals to work for a fixed fee per job.
“I have had no experience with ComputerRepair.com and I never will,” writes Philip Overman. “The business model may be great for the owner but it is not for the IT professionals that have to work to fixed-amount jobs. The IT business is too complex to be able to define narrow scopes of work or to be able to determine the amount of time it takes to perform those scopes.”
A column about the explosion of interest in mobile text messaging brought this note of concern from a reader:
“Cell phone users and driving is bad/dangerous enough,” writes Don Cherry, “so can you imagine the potential problem of driving and using text messaging? And the drivers being teenagers, no less. Some serious consideration needs to be applied to cell phone use in vehicles.”
My rant about pseudo-journalists who accept money from vendors to go on TV news programs and tout their products drew a heartening number of supportive messages. The column explained that we don’t do that here and carried the headline: “We’re not for sale.”
“Thank you for your editorial disclosure about Network World not being on the take,” writes Joe Kwak. “It is a sad thing in this day and age that editorial objectivity needs to be affirmed and reaffirmed. As they say, it is sometimes the acts of a few that ruins it for the many.”
Another piece attempted to debunk a Stanford spam study that said the typical worker spends 10 full workdays a year – a minute and a half every hour – shoveling junk e-mail. A number of readers called me all wet over that one, and then there was this take:
“Reading your column got me thinking about spam, and I came to a really depressing conclusion,” writes Jim Cerny. “Overall, the Internet infrastructure is like Gulliver in Lilliput, a helpless giant being tied down by the little people doing spamming. Collectively the Internet has been unable to solve this problem! Despite all the smart people, all the technology, they are collectively unable to devise and implement a plan that would prevent massive spamming.”
Depressing is the right word, all right.
Now that I’ve made more room, you should know that the address is buzz@nww.com.
