Telephones Have Also Become Conduits Of Unwanted Advertising

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Ads are also included in faxed newspapers, which usually are two- or three-page summaries of the day's top stories sent to businesses that cannot get same-day delivery. The Hartford Courant, the first newspaper to provide a fax service, started in April 1989. The Courant continues to produce Omega Replica its fax paper, which now has a readership of several thousand, but has discontinued the sale of its bottom-of-the-page $100 ads. The New York Times "Times Fax," however, which is sent all over the world, to seventy-eight Caribbean resorts and sixty-four cruise ships, considers advertising a big part of its publication and offers various special editions as vehicles for its advertisers.

Some advertising is faxed directly and without invitation to the fax machines of those owning them. Unlike junk mail, whose cost is borne by the sender, junk faxes involuntarily cost the receiver, who winds up paying in paper and toner costs for the printing of often unwanted messages. In December 1991, President Bush signed legislation to permit those who do not ...
... wish to receive junk faxes to enter their names on a list. Advertisers who transmitted to the fax machines on that list would be violating the law.

Telephones have also become conduits of unwanted advertising. We assume that most of our readers have at one time or another rushed to their phone expecting a call from a friend, only to hear a recorded voice telling them that they have won a trip or prize or were eligible to receive a deep discount on magazines. Such intrusive use of the telephone can be life-endangering when the numbers reached are those of the fire station, the police department, or a hospital's emergency line. By tying up the line, the advertiser blocks the access of those who need to reach the hospital or the fire or police station.

Some people also contend that these calls are an invasion of personal privacy, particularly when, through random-digit dialing, they reach individuals who have paid to have their phone numbers unlisted. A 1990 U.S. Congress Energy and Commerce Committee report revealed that "more than 180,000 solicitors call more than 7 million Americans every day with recorded messages sent by automatic dialers, and more than 2 million businesses send more than 30 billion pages of information by fax each year." Legislation in 1992 required telephone solicitors to provide their name, business, and business phone or address. These regulations are applicable Tag Heuer Carrera Replica to both live and recorded messages. Direct marketers have been steadily moving toward fully automated systems; the percentage of all telemarketing solicitations that were automated rose 10 percent between 1994 and 1997, reaching 41 percent in 1997.

In other words, television, radio, and newspapers are not the only conduits of advertising, and many forms of advertising do not appear in purchased time or space. This chapter focuses on advertising found in the mass media, however, because without this advertising the mass media as we know them in the United States would not exist.