Close but not quite. You're on the right track, though. Although a tire
company might contact Moss, it's probably more likely that one of the
mailing list companies (there are companies that make their living
collecting and selling lists) buys a list from Moss for a fee (or Moss
agrees to rent it to the company). The company is later contacted by VB
who is looking to rent a list of British car enthusiasts.
For instance, I do multimedia software development. If a "competitor"
called up and wanted to rent my list, particularly if they were in the
exact same business with the exact same products, we'd decline. However,
if "Acme Mailing Lists" called and said they purchase mailing lists from
all over and would be interested in ours, we might sell (actually we don't
sell our list at all, but just pretend...). Then, our competitor, at some
point choosing to do a marketing campaign, notices that "Acme Mailing
Lists" has a list of multimedia customers that meet certain criteria. They
decide to rent the list for a one-time mailing, and lo-and-behold, our
mailing list has become theirs, if only for a one time use.
Note also that mailing list companies (and private companies) often seed
their mailing lists with a few fake or prearranged addresses so they can
tell if the list is being used illegally, or otherwise used improperly past
the one-time restriction.
- Tab
At 07:48 PM 2/16/00 -0700, Larry Hoy wrote:
> > As someone who makes his living in the media business, I
>can assure you that
> > competitors do indeed RENT lists from one another, when
>they can.
>
>Hmm, you can bet I wouldn't rent a list to my competitor.
>Isn't it more likely that a company like Moss would rent a
>list to another company like; The Tire Rack, or perhaps
>Kruse Auto Auctions, maybe British Car Magazine? Another
>company with common customers, but not companies with common
>products?
>
>Larry Hoy
>"doesn't know what the word media means, but calls himself
>an expert"
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