Date: Sun, 8 Sep 1996 18:29:16 -0700 (PDT) From: Michael Dillon <michael@memra.com> To: isp-marketing@sparknet.net Cc: inet-access@earth.com Subject: Better mailing list for ISP CEO's Message-ID: <Pine.BSI.3.93.960908181051.4566R-100000@sidhe.memra.com> In-Reply-To: <3.0b11.32.19960908190853.0113be88@mail.sparknet.net>
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Christopher, I think that your fundamental mistake here is that you are a marketing person trying to create a trade association of ISP's. I don't think this is workable. Trade associations have to be created by the industry itself and there are numerous other examples in numerous industries to show that this is the way to do things. What you are proposing here differs very little from what IDEA has been flogging for the past year, namely an ISP trade association run by marketing people who are essentially, outsiders to the industry. If ISP CEO's really want to join a non-technical mailing list to talk with others, don't mind a public forum and would like to steer clear of anti-trust issues by having a list that is not explicitly for ISP CEO's only, then may I suggest they send a subscribe message to com-priv-request@lists.psi.com com-priv is a venerable list for commercial Internet providers since the first commercial providers were created. Since it also includes media people, political analysts, telco executives, etc., it is not as likely to be seen as an anti-trust vehicle and yet you can still accomplish the goal of sharing ideas with other industry leaders, making your company visible to prospective buyers and/or shopping for aquisitions yourself. On Sun, 8 Sep 1996, Christopher Sevcik wrote: > * You're right in that it wasn't my intention to get involved in anti-trust > problems, as I had never even thought about that when I started the list. > My public invitation to all ceo's will prove my intentions. Ask your lawyer whether the courts will care about your publicly expressed intentions. Also ask whether a public invitation to all CEO's will lessen anyone's liability. > * You're right in that it won't be the lists fault if two ceo's collude to > share pricing and someone thinks it's anti-trust.... Ask your lawyer whether or not the list owner or other list members could have any liability if two ceo's on the list collude to fix prices. > but, what about the many > who have been sharing for years on other lists? How come no one has gotten > in trouble? Other lists are not for CEO's and the CEO's that are on the lists are small owner-operators. Governments tend to ignore small businesses. The liabilities from anti-trust are with respect to things like price-fixing and manipulating the market, not with respect to other aspects of a business such as marketing ideas or technical ideas. Whenever anyone on the other lists crosses the line, someone slaps them down too. > once in a while on inet-access....I am NOT justifying anti-trust activity as > ethical, I am only stating that if you'll go to the other lists archives, > I'll show you clear violations. If there truly are clear violations there in the archives then the DOJ may already be looking at laying charges. You'll never know until they decide what to do. But the more dangerous thing, IMHO, is when a disgruntled competitor lays the charges. In such a case they may well use historical records to show that the defendant has a history of antitrust violations. > * What if the big ISP's want to buy the small ISP's? What better forum for > ISP Ceo's to get together to get to know each other, so that when the right > business opportunity comes along, I am certain this list will be very > valuable to both parties. Are you saying that you want to buy some small ISP's and you are starting the list so you can go shopping? Quite frankly, I think there are better ways to shop for a company and better venues in which to meet prospective sellers face to face. > * Somehow I am going forward with this list...even if we have to ban > certain topics. There is just way too much value in pulling together the > minds of ISP's CEO's who can pool resources, resources from the mental world > as well as the physical.... so that the ultimate winner is the consumer! This is not a logical thought. There is no direct connection between benefit to the consumer and ISP CEO's pooling resources. It might be good, it might be bad, it might be indifferent. Better ask your lawyer to review that statement as well. Michael Dillon - ISP & Internet Consulting Memra Software Inc. - Fax: +1-604-546-3049 http://www.memra.com - E-mail: michael@memra.com
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