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Re: more breaking privacy news (from Wall St Journal via NewsScan)



First off: I wasn't even sure those kinds of TVs do exist but I thought
they did. If someone can enlighten me---great.

My real question was: is muting sound on ads blocking them? Does that act
encumber free speech?

And do they close caption commercials? If the don't then are we also
encumbering free speech of the advertisers?

I don't know. That's why I am asking.

On Mon, 1 May 2000, Harry Ahlas wrote:

> Date: Mon, 1 May 2000 22:30:44 -0500
> From: Harry Ahlas <hahlas@email.unc.edu>
> To: pretr@ruby.ils.unc.edu
> Subject: Re: more breaking privacy news (from Wall St Journal via
>     NewsScan)
> 
> I see where you (Robin) are coming from on the TV blocking.
> 
> But one major difference between TV and Internet is that to get that service
> on the internet, you can buy the program and add it on to the PC you already
> have.  For TV, you must buy an entirely new set from scratch, one that costs
> probably a lot more and presents no major threat to advertising like banner
> blocking does because only the wealthy own them.  Right?
> 
> Harry
> 
> 
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Robyn Pretzloff <pretr@ils.unc.edu>
> To: Paul Jones <pjones@MetaLab.unc.edu>
> Cc: <inls310-74@ruby.ils.unc.edu>
> Sent: Monday, May 01, 2000 11:47 AM
> Subject: Re: more breaking privacy news (from Wall St Journal via NewsScan)
> 
> 
> > > question: isn't ad-blocking at an ISP level a barrier to free
> > > speech? remember that in the past ten years, commercial speech is
> > > protected speech too.
> >
> > Well can't one buy TVs that have that feature where you can set it up to
> > automatically mute the sound on commercials? That's not total ad blocking
> > but it's certainly close.
> >
> > They don't close caption commercials do they? Maybe I am wrong but I
> > though they only close caption some TV shows but never commercials. Isn't
> > that ad blocking?
> >
> > > a little background: in 1996, a chapel hill start up called privnet
> which
> > > had a product called "internet fastforward." IF basically killed
> anything
> > > that looked like a banner ad. Not that it ever worked quite right, but
> > > they did get to be an offical plug-in to netscape 2.0 and they were
> > > immediately threatened with suits from various advertizing
> organizations.
> > > They were immediately thereafter bought by Phil Zimmerman and made
> > > wealthy. IF disappeared completely and so did the suits.
> > >
> > >
> ==========================================================================
> > >                              Paul Jones
> > >    "We must protect our precious bodily fluids!" General Jack D Ripper
> > > http://MetaLab.unc.edu/pjones/ at the Site Formerly Known As
> SunSITE.unc.edu
> > >   pjones@MetaLab.unc.edu   voice: (919) 962-7600     fax: (919) 962-8071
> > >
> ===========================================================================
> > >
> > >
> > >
> >
> >
> 
>