More on Belkin and unsolicited router-ads

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

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Date: Tue, 11 Nov 2003 22:44:13 +0100
From: R e m b e r t    O l d e n b o o m <rembert () floating-point nl>
To: Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>
Subject: Re: [Politech] Belkin responds to router-advertisement controversy
 [sp]

Hi,

Jeezz... here in the Netherlands we have a saying: 'turning a musquito into an
elephant'. That's just what's hapening here. I've installed numerous Belkin
routers and yes, I've seen the Parental advertisement. I've always regarded
this as an optional feature during the installation process. Although I *hate*
spam and do fight spam actively I haven't thought about this being spam for
even a split second. Couldn't that usenet group find more important isuses to
make a fuzz about? Besides, one can argue if this is spam after all. I don't
think it is and I have no complaints towards Belkin regarding this (nor
regarding their hard/software btw and their support is great).

Rembert Oldenboom
Netherlands

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From: "Thomas Junker" <tjunker () tjunker com>
To: Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>
Date: Tue, 11 Nov 2003 12:04:20 -0600
MIME-Version: 1.0
Subject: Re: [Politech] Belkin responds to router-advertisement controversy 
[sp]

On 11 Nov 2003 at 9:32, Declan McCullagh wrote:

> Belkin Responds to Customers' Concerns Regarding Routers
>
> Belkin offers firmware upgrade to eliminate browser redirect from all its
> routers

Declan,

The problem created by Belkin has been extensively discussed on
slashdot.  What has been published here on Politech and the
statements issued by Belkin have obscured what the real problem
seems to have been:  not spam in the sense of email, but periodic
hijacking of HTTP requests by their router, redirecting the HTTP
requests to a Belkin page offering their parental control option.

Rather than the annoyance factor, what caused the firestorm of
outrage was the stupidity and arrogance of a router manufacturer to
presume to hijack an HTTP session and redirect it for advertising
purposes.  The nearly universal opinion in the slashdot community is
that a router should route, period, and should not interfere with
the packets it handles except as it may explicitly be configured to
do by the user or, in cases of firewall functions, clearly stated
blocking of classes of traffic, which may often be active by
default.

Had Belkin responded immediately in a completely straightforward
manner, they could have defused much of the impact and earned some
measure of respect.  While it's to their credit that they seem
eventually to have found a Clue Store and bought a few, they
weaseled their way to their present position, including cancelling a
USENET post by their Eric Deming that had admitted to the hijacking
"feature."  Attempts to suppress information are treated by the
Internet community with all the respect owed to wet farts in a
crowded elevator.  The cancelled post is now mirrored, including
here:

    http://www.tjunker.com/belkin.txt

Since Belkin did not immediately respond in an honest manner, some
have suggested that they since had time to gauge the impact on their
sales, certainly their direct online sales, and that that may have
affected their decision to mollify the outrage, rather than any
innate sense of ethics or right or wrong.  The number of people on
slashdot who foreswore every buying *anything* made by Belkin was
somewhat astonishing.  Some even claimed to have countered their
same-day plans to buy a Belkin after reading of the problem.  I have
little doubt that Belkin saw an immediate effect on their sales, and
since they didn't do The Right Thing immediately, they can now never
prove that they didn't eventually act out of nothing more than crass
commercial interest.

I buy a lot of gear and I have taken an approach that has served me
well with all types of vendors:  when a vendor pisses me off I levy
a fine against them and collect the fine from budget I may otherwise
have sent in their direction in the form of purchases.  In Belkin's
case I am fining them 100% of all purchases of any of their products
for one year.  After that time I will review how, in the final
analysis, they handled this, and on the basis of that I may or may
not lift the fine.  Nothing they do in the days or weeks following
the firestorm will affect my decision.  It will only lay a
foundation for possible later reinstatement in my purchasing
portfolio.  I include purchases of resale items in this policy,
which has the effect of depressing resale prices and causing
resellers to be less pleased with their original decision to have
bought the brand in question.

Stupidity should have consequences.  As individuals the most
powerful tool we have for inflicting consequences is our purchasing
power.  If the local laundry sends my shirts back with black smudges
on them (yes, this has happened), I deny them business for a year.
If the local pizza place serves me something unacceptable or closes
early when I am driving there with intense pizza anticipation, I
deny them my business for a year.  The cable TV company here that
began sharing a channel between C-SPAN and a local UHF home shopping
channel under the Clinton FCC's election-time enforcement of the
"must carry rule" lost my business the same day and never got it
back.  Interestingly, they never even tried to get my business
again, ignoring the basic rule of sales that one's best prospects
are one's former customers.  But we always knew that cable companies
were brain dead, didn't we?

I am as ruthless and brutal with my spending decisions as I can be
because that is the only effective weapon I have for dealing with
clueless, incompetent, arrogant, abusive or dishonest businesses.
It is also very satisfying because it is in direct contrast to the
helplessness we usually feel at the hands of businesses.  I am the
plaintiff attorney, the judge, the jury and the fine collector.
There is no appeal.

As the business world becomes increasingly infested with weasels,
clueless MBAs and executives focussed solely on their bonuses, we
have to fight back, and fight for keeps.

I hope that in the future investigative reporting will move to
identifying the actual individuals responsible for stupid and
destructive corporate policies and programs so each of us can do his
part to make sure those people never again work above the level of
"Fries with that?"

Regards,

Thomas Junker
tjunker () tjunker com

(no need to de-spamify -- anyone who spams me pays a very heavy
price)
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