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Re: Mr Rogers on Externalities
From: David Farber <dave () farber net>
Date: Tue, 25 Mar 2008 09:22:54 -0700
________________________________________ From: David P. Reed [dpreed () reed com] Sent: Tuesday, March 25, 2008 12:18 PM To: David Farber Cc: ip Subject: Re: [IP] Re: Mr Rogers on Externalities Note that there is precedent for class actions for overstating what one delivers. Past examples: 1) The diagonal measurements of color video picture tubes were overstated by about 10% compared to their actual measurements, largely due to marketing "stretching" of the truth across the industry. That did NOT save the companies from losing the class actions, for huge damages. 2) Recently, the number of "megabytes" of hard drives was stretched (again by 8-10%), compared to the actual addressable storage capacities, and also the use of misleading units. That class action may still be going on - I don't track it. Truth in advertising is not a joke to be ignored. ISPs who deliberately underprovision customers actually run a huge risk. On the other hand, there is a risk in being too "truthy" - customers will buy a strong brand that promises more than it delivers over a weak brand that tells the detailed truth. Truthiness can lead to business weakness. ------------------------------------------- Archives: http://www.listbox.com/member/archive/247/=now RSS Feed: http://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/247/ Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
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- Re: Mr Rogers on Externalities David Farber (Mar 25)
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