🚀 go-pugleaf

Enough bitching and whinning, what are the facts. Websters provides the
following definitions:

	Collusion (n) - A secret agreement between two or more persons for
	a deceitful or illegal purpose.

	Conspire (v) - [1] To plan together in secret to commit a wrongful
	act. [2] To act or work together.

Dan A. Norton accuses the members of the albany-isp mailing list of using
state of the art technology to collude/conspire to fix prices. Unless I'm
mistaken, his proof is limited to the following:

1. In the existence and closed nature of the list, a vehicle for such
collusion exists.
2. When questioned, a member of the AlbanyNET staff, the site hosting the
list, becomes defensive.

To address the first point, gathering people to conspire has been going on
long before the invention of the computer. Conspiracy and collusion can
take place over many vehicles of communication. One of the best vehicles
is the telephone, but the simple presence of a telephone in your house
does not make you part of a conspiracy, does it?

By the very nature of this mailing list, every person on this list gets
everything sent to it. If you look at the current subscribers, you'll note
that there are atleast ten different companies listed: 

	@albany.net
	@albany.net
	@albany.net
	@albany.net
	@netheaven.com
	@wizvax.net
	@wizvax.net
	@logical.net
	@global2000.net
	@adirondack.net
	@cowland.com
	@klink.net
	@automatrix.com
	@capital.net
	@logical.net
	@digiworldinc.com 

 	(Note: Anyone with a clue can get the complete e-mail addresses 
	easily enough)

Do you really think that that many different people at that many different
companies who compete for the same customers would collude to fix prices. 

On the second point, if Matt Zahorik became defensive when you questioned
him, perhaps it was because of the absurd nature of your accusation. I
would imagine he works 12 hours days just trying to keep up with day to
day operations including tech support, hacker attacks, system failures,
increasing system load, etc. Do you really think he NEEDS some
self-righteous, megalomaniacal busy body accusing him of illegal
activities. 

Is it not enough that the self important Dan Norton be the great keeper of
the FAQ of the local, and might I say pretty quiet, newsgroups. If you
notice, the FAQ's (which are probably 10% of the articles in these VERY
IMPORTANT newsgroups) are all copyright Dan Norton as is his personal home
page.

Now the great and powerful Norton wants access to a closed mailing list
so that he can be counted amongst the area internet "elite." Think about
it, if there WAS a conspiracy in place, do you honestly think it would
stop if the list became public? So what is to be gained by access to the
list, except status? 

The internet is about cooperation. Cooperation is how standards are
formed. Without standards like TCP/IP, HTTP, FTP SMTP, etc. we would not
be having this discussion. If the local ISP's are using a closed mailing
list to cooperate in an effort to keep this runaway train on the tracks,
then more power to them. The last thing they need are self-appointed
coaches and Monday morning quarterbacks jumping in with halfbaked
criticism and suggestions. If my connection stays running at a reasonable
price I'm happy.

I see no evidence of price fixing. Prices range anywhere from $4.95 to $30
with a variety of plans on the home pages of the providers listed above,
Heck, two of them don't even provide dial-up access. What do they gain by
participating in this great conspiracy?

You be the judge. The consumer rests.

Cybermage

"Just another bozo on the Usenet bus." - great line, source forgotten :(