Friday, June 7, 2019

An Announcement

     Some time ago, I made a mistake: In my capacity as Liberty’s Torch’s administrator, I accepted an unpaid ad for a commercial concern. I’ve since taken it down. It was a lapse in judgment on my part to agree to it. The World Wide Web has far too much advertising on it already. I should not have added to it.

     About an hour and a half ago, I received a phone call, on my domestic phone, from another company that wanted to advertise at Liberty’s Torch. I can’t imagine why. as we have an average daily readership of barely 300 persons. As the call came in the middle of something I would have preferred to go uninterrupted, I was uncharitably brusque with the caller; I told him simply that “We don’t accept advertising,” and hung up at once.

     Where did the caller get my domestic phone number? I haven’t made it public. It’s not listed in any directory I know of. To be called at home by someone I don’t know, for commercial reasons I disapprove, is no more welcome than being interrupted at dinner by a call from a telemarketer.

     What did this event portend? Will I be receiving still more calls from other would-be advertisers? Requests to post public-service pitches or event announcements? I wouldn’t like that. So I’m making Liberty’s Torch’s “No Advertising” policy quite explicit, as you can see from the sidebar.

     Peace, quiet and privacy are hard to come by these days. However my phone number may have gotten to the aforementioned caller, I sincerely hope he forgets it at once – and never reveals it to anyone else.

All my best,
Fran

1 comment:

SiGraybeard said...

You're scaring me, Fran!

I've never accepted advertising or tried to monetize in any way. It seems that every day I delete about a dozen SPAMs that just seem to be testing to see if they can post something they read back. I assume if they see it, the next one is an ad. I get some of those, too.

I have a caller ID answering machine and won't answer if it's not some people I know. For all I know, they could have called already.