One of my many hats is the owner of a very technical mailing list with about 400 subscribers. I received the following unsolicited e-mail from reference.com, which I'm reposting without comment: ]Received: (from eansender@localhost) ] by bilbo.reference.com (8.8.5/8.8.4) ] id GAA15443 for DLV@DM.COM; Thu, 24 Jul 1997 06:15:14 -0700 (PDT) ]Date: Thu, 24 Jul 1997 06:15:14 -0700 (PDT) ]From: ean@reference.com ]Message-Id: <199707241315.GAA15443@bilbo.reference.com> ]To: DLV@DM.COM ]Subject: InReference Email Ad Network Information ] ]Dear List Owner, ] ]As a listowner, you may have heard about us. We're InReference, Inc. We're ]the developers of Reference.COM, the Internet's most comprehensive resource ]for accessing Internet forums. We allow business and home users to easily ]search, find, browse and participate in more than 150,000 worldwide web ]forums, USENET newsgroups and email lists. Even though you're not currently ]archiving your list with Reference.COM, we thought we'd let you know about a ]new service from InReference that may be of interest. We understand the ]pressures on your time, so thanks in advance for hearing us out. ] ]During the past year, we've been approached by numerous list owners ]asking for help finding sponsors for their lists. While a few lists are ]already funded, others would benefit from additional financial support. ]The reasons are many. Perhaps the listowner needs helps supporting day-to-day ]operations. Or perhaps there's a desire to grow the list. ] ]We've also been approached by many would-be sponsors, socially-responsible ]companies that wanted to do email advertising the right way--with the ]cooperation and support of the list owner. ] ]To address this need, we've started the InReference email ad network (EAN). ]Basically, we match you up with advertisers fitting a preference profile that ]you create. We handle ad sales, insertion, auditing, billing, and so on. It ]costs nothing to sign-up, and can generate $0.01-0.05/ad/subscriber depending ]on the list. As a list owner, you choose the type of ad (whether banner or ]standalone) and the frequency of ad insertion. You also have the right to veto ]any ads before they can be sent out. ] ]A more detailed description of EAN can be found at the following URL : ] http://www.inreference.com/ean ]Should your interest warrant it, details on signing up can be found at : ] http://www.inreference.com/ean/listinfo.html ] ]Regards, ] ]Jack Zoken ]President ]InReference, Inc. ] ]PS: Regardless of whether you sign-up for EAN, we'd welcome the opportunity to ]archive your list at Reference.COM. See __________ to submit your list for ]inclusion.