| First off, let me say here and now that I am not against advertising on the Internet so long as it is conducted in an honest manner. Net advertising is not the issue here -- ethical advertising is. This page deals with repeated incidents which show a total lack of business ethics -- and respect for the networking community -- on the part of Atlantic Records and a consultant hired by them, Mike Corso, of "c notes interactive." To this day, they seem totally unremorseful of their "whisper campaign." In short, they tried to fool (and in many cases, succeded in fooling) music consumers on the net into thinking that they were reading the words of a fan instead of what they were actually reading: the prepared statements of a paid marketing consultant. |
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I first noticed something funny about postings that originated from buffalo@panix.com in the summer of 1994. This person made fairly regular postings to several of the Usenet music-related newsgroups that I frequented, as well as to a BITNET mailing list, to which I have subscribed since 1989: Allmusic <allmusic@american.edu>. He/She seemed to switch nicknames all the time -- C-man, Short Haul, Pinto Bean, etc. So, okay, lots of people do that on the net. But then I started detecting what appeared to be a pattern in these posts. They were always heaping praise on whatever artist the article dealt with. While that in itself wasn't so suspicious, it seemed that a regular roster of twenty or thirty artists were continually being shuffled about as the topics of his postings. All of these things combined were what got my brain to itchin', and before long, itchin' gave way to scratchin'.
After checking the Allmusic archives to confirm what I already suspected, I threw down the glove. I replied to one of these postings (about Mike Stern, I believe) saying that a grain of salt should be served with whatever this buffalo@panix.com had to say, as it appeared that he might actually be working for Atlantic Records. His reaction was predictable -- he denied it. Worse yet, he had the audacity to actually accuse ME of deceit!
Bad move.
I immediately proceeded to extract all 85 of buffalo's postings to Allmusic -- all shining, happy reviews of Atlantic product -- from the archives, and reposted them (along with my witty remarks, heh) to all of the music groups he had been posting to for months.
Reluctantly, he came clean -- he admitted being a paid consultant. But he continued the posting campaign unabated. I repeatedly asked him to indicate in his signature file his association with Atlantic, but this was not going to happen. I then started following-up to all of his postings on Usenet, pointing out that he was being paid to do this -- to the annoyance of many, which led me to discontinue that particular tactic (Scientific American even went to the trouble to mention that I had lost my Internet access because of this, but that wasn't quite true; I had several other accounts, and the one sysadmin who did temporarily deny me access to his machine, quickly returned my privileges after a brief exchange of e-mail).
Meanwhile, I received e-mail from a couple of people who claimed to be working for Atlantic. They seemed to have an address which lent credibility to the claim, but as they say, "on the net, no one knows you're a cat." They made reconciliatory noises, and promised that Atlantic was in the process of cleaning up its act in this regard, and asked me to please be less harsh about the whole thing in public. Well, months went by... still, Mike Corso (the man pulling buffalo's strings) was just as regularly turning the crank on the ol' spam-machine. I kept writing these folks who claimed to be employed by Atlantic, asking them how it was conceivable that if Atlantic -- a branch of the Time-Warner GoogolCorp, both of whom retain armies of lawyers -- were sincere, that Corso's plug could remain unpulled. Excuses were offered, but all were fairly transparent.
And the spam played on...
A few months later, my attention was brought to an article in GQ magazine which mentioned the fiasco. In it, Atlantic Records president Danny Goldberg very unapologetically stated that "... it is ridiculous to think that the Internet should be exempt from the ways one creates excitement about rock-and-roll records (paraphrased)," and went on to list some of the time-honored deceptive practices used with pride by the recording industry in the past 40 years. While Mike Corso declined to be interviewed for this article (as did I -- I had seen far too many hatchet jobs in the popular press about the Internet in preceding months!), the author said that Corso had confided that he (Corso) didn't think it was important to disclose his affiliation with Atlantic because he was simply a consultant -- not an actual employee. Ha! That's a convenient distinction, I'd say...
In January, 1995, I decided I'd had enough -- Corso's excrement continued to float in the Usenet punchbowl on a regular basis, and I was tired of straining it out. So, I filed a formal complaint with the Federal Trade Commission last year against "c notes interactive" (Corso's company). Now, I didn't really want to take this step; I was pretty certain that with the appropriate level of ridicule and spotlighting, Atlantic would feel thay had reached a point of diminishing returns. But not so! Apparently ANY publicity is GOOD publicity to Mr. Goldberg and Mr. Corso. Quid pro quo, baby. So, I found this online copy of the FTC's Deception Policy Statement, and after a thorough reading, opined that Corso was absolutely guilty of "concealing the source of the opinion" in his ads, if nothing else. His violation of these FTC guidelines seemed fairly obvious.
But here in April, 1996 -- 16 months later -- the FTC complaint has been met thusfar with a deafening silence. This is all rather puzzling to me, as the following excerpt from an FTC press release dated September, 1994, might explain:
FTC TARGETS ADVERTISING ON "INFORMATION SUPERHIGHWAY": Credit repair co. urged consumers to falsify data, FTC Charged In its first case targeting advertising on the "information superhighway," the Federal Trade Commission has charged a Sacramento, California, man with making false claims in the course of promoting his credit-repair program on an on-line computer service. The FTC alleged that Brian Corzine, doing business as Chase Consulting, promoted his $99 program on America Online. The program allegedly advises consumers to take illegal steps in order to repair their credit records, while representing that it is "100% legal." At the FTC's request, a federal district court has ordered a temporary halt to the alleged deceptive promotion, and frozen Corzine's assets to preserve any funds for consumer redress. "As these computer networks continue to grow, we will not tolerate the use of deceptive practices here any more than we have tolerated them on other recently-emerged technologies for marketing products and services to consumers," said FTC Chairman Janet D. Steiger in announcing the case.Pretty nonchalant treatment from an agency whose Chairman more than implies equal enforcement of FTC regulations in regards to Internet commerce, wouldn't you say?
If you agree, why not e-mail the FTC and ask 'em just what's taking so long? Just be sure to mention "c notes interactive," as that is how the original complaint is filed.
Even though the FTC hasn't been paying attention, this didn't escape the notice of Dan Barrett, author of Bandits on the Information Superhighway, published by O'Reilly & Associates. Wow, my name's even in the index! Even so, it's a darn good book -- a must for anyone wanting to avoid the seamier schemes of net evildoers.
Well, I suppose this mess has just about burned up my promised Worhollian fifteen minutes, for better or worse. :) Let's summarize.
What have I learned from all this? Sadly, that no stranger can be reasonably trusted to give an objective opinion on the net. I no longer give much weight to opinions for which I do not KNOW the source -- usually by years of interacting with that person via the net, or in person. And it's getting worse: by taking my own advice found at the bottom of this page, I discovered that Mike Corso is now soliciting the services of college students with "... a broad understanding and appreciation of music..." with an emphasis on "... posting messages to electronic bulletin boards and mailing lists,"; gee, Mike, will they have to supply their own AOL Trial-Subscription Disks, or do you already have a truckload waiting to go? Looks like we'll have plenty of summertime entertainment in 1996... hordes of c-spamlettes, singing the praises of Atlantic product, yum, yum.
This has got to STOP. NOW.
Somewhat less importantly, tell Atlantic that you are supporting the boycott, not that they care.
I think the true danger facing the Internet lies not in being overrun with pornographers, terrorists, drug dealers and people who curse and/or burn flags. No, I think the very, very real danger is that it will be used increasingly as a tool for disseminating disinformation and propaganda of all types, be it commercial or governmental. Letting the small infractions by the GoogolCorps slide is a sure-fire way to make the steepest slippery-slope ever conceived. It's your Internet -- you can decide what shape it takes, but ONLY if you make your voice heard!