NNSquad - Network Neutrality Squad
[ NNSquad ] Rogers premium subscriber's ambused with advertisements
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Date: Sun, 16 Nov 2008 09:15:19 EST
From: Kevin Crannie <kcrannie@live.ca>
Subject: Rogers premium subscriber's ambused with advertisements
To: <city@thestar.ca>,
<newsonline@ctv.ca>,
<eroseman@thestar.ca>
A year following Rogers ambushing websites by inserting
advertisements into company's webpages alerting subscriber's when
they reached 75% of their allotted bandwidth usage Rogers has now
ambushed their premium subscribers by inserting advertisements
within the interface pages of premium subscriber's to Rogers Yahoo!
Mail. And we're talking about advertisements you would see as a
free subscriber to Windows Live Hotmail Yahoo! Gmail and = other
popular web-based email.
Members of DSL Reports.com are outraged over Rogers and Yahoo! to
take such action to force advertisements upon their premium
subscriber's
http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r21426474-Webmail-now-has-adverts
One member who wrote Rogers seeking answers as to why Rogers and
Yahoo! have take this action was only worthy of receiving the
response "Advertising content is commonly included in other popular
mail services such as Hotmail and Gmail. Rogers and Yahoo! have
jointly introduced advertising content to the Rogers Yahoo! Mail
Service."
Rogers fails to realize that Hotmail and Gmail are free and are ad
supported. Premium subscriber's to Hotmail Gmail Yahoo! and other
popular web-base email who pay a yearly fee see no advertisements.
Clearly it's non other than a money-making market for Rogers and
Yahoo! to force advertisements upon their premium subscriber's.
This abuse that Rogers is forcing upon their customer's is leaving
premium subscriber's asking the question Where does it end? Premium
subscriber's to Rogers HiSpeed who pay up to $54.95 /Mth and choose
to use Rogers Web mail now have to content with "inline adverts all
over the bloody page" reports one DSLReports.com member.
If this is the progress equalization security and communications
that Rogers provides I question their purpose and viability.
Kevin Crannie
1609 - 40 Asquith Avenue
Toronto ON M4W 1J6
Telephone: 416-922-5324
Email: kcrannie@live.ca
[ Key question -- Are these ads only appearing on the
Rogers-branded version of these services? If so, it's much
harder to argue against, since they are free to organize their
own pages as they wish. Users are presumably not forced to
subscribe to Rogers' brand of Web Mail. If Rogers is inserting
these ads onto unaffiliated pages, that's a whole different ball
of wax. Paying a subscription fee does not guarantee a lack
of ads -- just look at newspapers and magazines!
-- Lauren Weinstein
NNSquad Moderator ]