Editorial
How Dumb Is That?
Late last week FreeNet, one of the country's growing number of free ISPs, sent its users an email inviting them to sign up to the AllAdvantage "we pay you to surf the Net" programme.

Full marks to FreeNet for spotting the obvious. By getting its users to sign up using FreeNet's own membership number as a referral, the ISP stands to earn some pretty handsome revenues.

However -- as if to prove that the calibre of your average Free Internet user may not be quite as high as those who have chosen to retain their paid account, at least one FreeNet user has complained to AllAdvantage that FreeNet had spammed them.

Duh! Didn't they read the "terms and conditions" associated with using a free ISP? Didn't they read Aardvark?

If the reports I've been receiving have any basis in fact, FreeNet may not want to start counting on that AllAdvantage revenue just yet though. I've been advised that a number of local AllAdvantage users have had trouble getting their cheques cashed. The word "bounced" was used.

Perhaps this is just a hiccup in the new system they've put in place to allow local payouts to be made in NZ dollars drawn against an NZ account -- who knows?

Skid-Marks In Telecom's Undies
It looks as if I was right on the money when I suggested in last week's editorial that Telecom were running scared -- having seen their previously unchallenged legal warriors dealt a crushing blow by i4free.

It seems that Theresa and co. have got such a case of the frights that they've resorted to what is a decidedly questionable advertising campaign.

Unfortunately for Telecom the full-page ad appearing in the country's leading daily newspapers simply screams of how they're making unfair use of their monopoly. In effect they're making a very bold statement that if companies don't use their network then they will be penalised through a levy that only Telecom is in a position to unilaterally impose.

I notice that Telecom doesn't even have the courage to identify themselves as the advertiser in those full-page spreads -- maybe they are aware that the Telecom logo in association with anything related to the Internet doesn't exactly lend an "air of credibility" to what's being said.

One thing's for sure -- I'd hate to be the person who had the job of washing the underwear worn by Telecom's executives these days.

Oh... and speaking of Telecom's past, does anyone remember who was the figurehead for XTRA in the early days? More on this little story can be found here.

Readers may draw their own conclusions as to whether it was coincidence that Chris Tyler has outgrown Telecom and his old habits at the same time.

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