It is conventional to avoid blatant commercial traffic on the Internet and the USENET. Part of this is because of the Acceptable Use Policies which exist on parts of the net. But a lot of it is that people generally don't want to see random advertisements. I throw them away when the come in the paper mail; I don't want them in my email, either. The exceptions are lists where advertising is explicitly permitted, and lists whose purpose is advertisements. Many vendors maintain lists to which they send pricing information, new product announcements, etc. This is fine, because I can ignore those lists without missing anything I might really be interested. If someone were involved with, say, selling licenses to use PGP legally, or an electronic bank or escrow service, I think that might be OK, since it is of *direct* interest to this list. But even that is a shady area. If I want commercials, I subscribe to one of the appropriate lists. You wouldn't want me discussing cooking techniques or airline travel on cypherpunks , because it's not appropriate, and there are separate forums for those topics. Think of advertising the same way, and it appears not like censorship, which it isn't, but simply staying on the topic, which it is. Marc