<nettime> The Eleventh Commandmant: Thou Shall Not Filter My Advertisers...

[Patrice Riemens <patrice@xs4all.nl>]

Free ads-filter not of the liking of KPN-Telecom (*) 

Thou Shall See My Ads. Looks like being Commandment #11 KPN-Telecom would
like to impose upon its internet clients. XSO, a small company that
distributes a free programme that bypasses the ads in the KPN e-telephone
guide, has been served injunctions by the privatised state monopoly. 

XSO distributes a programme called i-Telgids. With it you can access
telephone numbers info stocked in the KPN-telecom database. 

You can also obtain these data direct from the KPN site, but that is full
of ads. So you're both forced to see them, and stay longer on-line (calls
are metered in .nl) since those suck so much bandwidth. i-Telegids gives
you the just the plain numbers. 

The ideal fix, you'd think. Well not for KPN, which feels deprived of
advertising revenues, since they get between NLG 25-40 ($ 12-20) per ad
for every 1000 hits on their website. Have a page loaded with ads that's
querried several thousand times a day, and laugh all the way to the
bank... till something like XSO comes along. KPN's position is now that
"XSO is using our data in a manner we do not condonne", and: "We think
we're the only ones to decide how our database may be accessed & used." 

XSO's boss R. Leemstra sees things differently: "We're doing nothing
unlawful here.  Our programme simply accesses KPN's website, but instead
of going to the home page it activates the search engine right away. If
KPN states they're losing advertising revenues, well, they may be right. 
But then, that's how the Internet works." 

The court might have an important point to statute on here.  More and more
companies are offering free internet services & products, but hope to make
money out of ensuing advertising revenues. 

(Copy-clefted from the daily "Trouw", Nov 20, 1999, frontpage, article by
Vincent Dekker, Q&D t-ed by yours truly.) 


(*) KPN telecom is the major telecom provider in .nl, and the former state
monopoly, now privatised. KPN has become owner of xs4all, which is
embroiled in a court case of its own, since two 'free' internet providers
have taken offense to xs4all's campaign on the theme "Free access comes at
a price: that of your privacy". 

#  distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission
#  <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism,
#  collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets
#  more info: majordomo@bbs.thing.net and "info nettime-l" in the msg body
#  archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@bbs.thing.net