Salon.com > Deborah Scoblionkov

Qwest slams Peter Pan

Mon, 16 Oct 2000 19:32:00 +0000

My last name can be something of a challenge to pronounce (Sko-blee-onk-ov) and a brain twister to spell. So, in consideration of people who may want to contact me, I've listed my phone number in the telephone directory under my name, as well as the more whimsical, unforgettable and mnemonic alias: "Peter Pan."

Over the years, I've gotten my share of prank phone calls -- adolescents identifying themselves as "Captain Hook," asking for "Tinker Bell," that sort of thing. I'll respond as "Wendy," and we both usually crack up in laughter before hanging up.

But in recent years, the benefits of having a phone book alter ego have been outweighed by the growing annoyance of telemarketers targeting the Asian immigrant community. The phone will ring during dinner, and when I answer I'm greeted with a long marketing pitch in Chinese -- the only words I recognize are "Mr. Pan." Worse, as the callers rarely speak English, they can't even get the joke.

Then, on a Friday evening in late August, I received a call (in English) from my long-distance provider, MCI WorldCom. Dismissing it as yet another telemarketing call offering me "additional services," I instructed the woman not to call again. But just as I was about to hang up, she explained that she was calling to inform me that I was no longer a customer of MCI.

Direct mail double cross?

Fri, 12 Nov 1999 17:00:00 +0000

In December, nine prominent Internet activists from the United States and Canada arrived in Washington for a secret meeting with officials from the Direct Marketing Association (DMA). The activists' message: Stop spamming, please.

For five hours straight, the activists -- founding members of the Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial E-mail (CAUCE) and representatives from various Internet service providers, telecommunications companies and software developers, including Microsoft -- tried to impress upon the DMA's honchos why they should shun unsolicited junk e-mail. They tried to educate the marketers about the economic and ethical issues of "cost-shifted advertising" (whereby the recipient pays), and about the threat that unbridled spam poses to consumers' privacy, to companies' private property rights and to the cooperative culture of the Internet. And they hoped that an agreement could be reached that would reduce spam without government intervention.

The case of the malicious critic

Mon, 21 Jun 1999 16:00:00 +0000

Katherine Neville writes sweeping romantic historical novels that span the globe and centuries, chronicling the eternal conflict between good and evil. Interestingly, she is now involved in a similar struggle unfolding on a more prosaic playing field -- the Web site of Amazon.com, where loyal Neville fans are battling a malicious critic who has been posting negative reviews of her latest thriller, "The Magic Circle."

A rash of vicious -- and suspiciously similar -- critiques of "The Magic Circle" began appearing on Amazon.com soon after its paperback release in March 1999. And a handful of glowing reviews about another of her books have mysteriously disappeared from the Amazon site.

"BUYER BEWARE! THIS IS A TERRIBLE BOOK," "TERRIBLE WRITING, TERRIBLE PLOT," "A COMPLETE WASTE OF TIME" are headers on these "Magic Circle"-slamming reviews -- making quite a contrast from earlier negative reviews that criticized "The Magic Circle" for being ambitious but "disappointing," "confusing," or having a "weak ending."

When candidates spam

Fri, 19 Feb 1999 20:00:00 +0000

On Feb. 4, thousands of outspoken and fiercely opinionated computer users around the world opened their e-mail to read: "You are receiving this message because you have participated in discussions about political issues on the Internet and having done so, have solicited contact on the subject. If you wish to be removed from our once-a-month future mailings, a simple reply with the word REMOVE will suffice."

Like so many other e-mail messages, it was spam. But the source wasn't a multi-level marketer or some clown selling bulk e-mail lists -- it was a New Jersey politician testing the waters for a statewide campaign.

Murray Sabrin is a Republican with his eye on the U.S. Senate seat that incumbent Democrat Frank Lautenberg announced this week he will vacate. Sabrin used to be a Libertarian, and in his 1997 campaign for governor against Christine Todd Whitman he was the first candidate from that party in his state to raise enough contributions to qualify for matching funds.