12.0594 Amazon.com & paper mills

Humanist Discussion Group (humanist@kcl.ac.uk)
Thu, 29 Apr 1999 22:55:51 +0100 (BST)

Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 12, No. 594.
Centre for Computing in the Humanities, King's College London
<http://www.princeton.edu/~mccarty/humanist/>
<http://www.kcl.ac.uk/humanities/cch/humanist/>

[1] From: "Norman D. Hinton" <hinton@springnet1.com> (4)
Subject: Re: 12.0591 Amazon.com & paper mills

[2] From: Ferstel John W <jwf3885@usl.edu> (87)
Subject: Re: 12.0591 Amazon.com & paper mills

[3] From: Robert Knapp <Robert.Knapp@directory.Reed.EDU> (30)
Subject: Re: 12.0591 Amazon.com & paper mills

[4] From: "D. L. Henderson" <"D. L. Henderson"@geac.com> (3)
Subject: Re: 12.0591 Amazon.com & paper mills

--[1]------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Thu, 29 Apr 1999 21:56:21 +0100
From: "Norman D. Hinton" <hinton@springnet1.com>
Subject: Re: 12.0591 Amazon.com & paper mills

Jungle page was one of Amazon's "associates" -- independent operators
with whom Amazon contracts for advertising space, and to whom Amazon
pays royalties for each book bought through the Associates' site.

Today some of us have gotten e-mail from Amazon saying that they have
terminated their "associate status" with Jungle Page. Good!

--[2]------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Thu, 29 Apr 1999 21:56:43 +0100
From: Ferstel John W <jwf3885@usl.edu>
Subject: Re: 12.0591 Amazon.com & paper mills

Here is the letter I received when I e-mailed Amazon.com. This clarifies
the relationship between JunglePage and Amazon.com. Note that this relationship
is now severed.

Jack Ferstel
U. of Southwestern Louisiana
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

>From associates@amazon.com Wed Apr 28 14:57:44 1999
X-Authentication-Warning: associates-1.amazon.com: marco set sender to
associates@amazon.com using -f
To: "John W. Ferstel" <jwf3885@usl.edu>
from-address: associates@amazon.com

Thank you very much for bringing this to our attention. We've looked
into this and found that junglepages.com had been a member of the
Amazon.com Associates Program. This program now includes over 250,000
web sites that recommend our service to their visitors in exchange for
a small percentage of the sales they generate.

We never handle orders for the products offered for sale by our
Associates, and certainly never took orders for the essays and papers
sold by junglepages.com. It's also inappropriate for an Associate to
claim that they are "sponsored by" Amazon.com, which implies a level of
endorsement that we explicitly do not offer any of our Associates and
did not offer to junglepages.com.

Many web sites do not qualify to join or remain in the Amazon.com
Associates program, and upon review we have decided to terminate this
account effective immediately. We have requested that our logo and
brand name be removed from the site, and hope that this will be
completed shortly.

Thanks again for writing to express your concerns, and for giving us a
chance to take the proper action.

Please let us know if we can be of further assistance.

Sincerely,

Marco H. Sawrey
Amazon.com Associates Program
http://www.amazon.com/associates
Books, Music and More...
>
> >Subject: Amazon's Sponsorship of Term Paper Mill
> >To: feedback@amazon.com
> >X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.5 [en] (Win95; I)
> >From: "John W. Ferstel" <jwf3885@usl.edu>
> >Date: Mon, 26 Apr 1999 14:46:55 -0500
> >
> >This is a multi-part message in MIME format.
> >--------------148D503CDD37E404AFAEF69B
> >Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
> >Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
> >
> >As an Amazon.Com customer and a college instructor, I find what apppears
> >to be your sponsorship of JunglePage, a term paper company, very
> >disturbing!
> >
> >Academic honesty and individual effort are still important values to
> >thousands of college faculty throughout this country. This kind of
> >profiteering undermines the course grading and degrees that our
> >institutions use to certify the achievements of its students.
> >
> >I am urging you to reconsider your sponsorship of such organizations and
> >reflect further on the ethical dimensions of this support.
> >
> >John W. Ferstel
> >Inbstructor of English
> >U. of Southwestern Louisiana
> >c/o Dept. of English - USL
> >Lafayette, LA 70504
> >jwf3885@usl.edu
> >--------------148D503CDD37E404AFAEF69B
> >Content-Type: text/x-vcard; charset=us-ascii;
> > name="jwf3885.vcf"
> >Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
> >Content-Description: Card for John W. Ferstel
> >Content-Disposition: attachment;
> > filename="jwf3885.vcf"
> >
> >begin:vcard
> >n:Ferstel;John W.
> >tel;fax:(318) 482-5071
> >tel;work:(318) 482-5499
> >x-mozilla-html:FALSE
> >adr:;;;;;;
> >version:2.1
> >email;internet:jwf3885@usl.edu
> >fn:John W. Ferstel
> >end:vcard
> >
> >--------------148D503CDD37E404AFAEF69B--
> >
> >
>

--[3]------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Thu, 29 Apr 1999 21:57:01 +0100
From: Robert Knapp <Robert.Knapp@directory.Reed.EDU>
Subject: Re: 12.0591 Amazon.com & paper mills

How do we know that Amazon has a connection with Junglepage? They
acknowledge it:

"
Hello from Amazon.com,

Thanks for writing to us about our Associate at junglepage.com. We
will be looking into the nature of this site further.

We will not associate with sites that

promote sexually explicit materials
promote violence
promote discrimination based on race, sex, religion,
nationality, disability, sexual orientation, or age
promote illegal activities
violate intellectual property rights

Let us know if we can answer any further questions for you.

Best regards,

Jennifer Jenkins
Amazon.com
http://www.amazon.com
=========================
Earth's Biggest Selection"

Of course Junglepage commits none of the sins that Amazon would dissociate
from: nothing illegal about buying the work of a ghost to foist off on an
unsuspecting guardian of credentials. François's fantasy about the return
of handwriting as the guarantor of authenticity leaves aside the underlying
old-fashioned notion of "honor": an internalization of mutual
responsibility that can be promoted only in relatively small interactive
groups. Maybe Junglepage and Amazon will do us all a service, bringing to
a dysfunctional conclusion the logic of factory-style education and its
emphasis on "product."

Robert Knapp

--[4]------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Thu, 29 Apr 1999 09:36:48 -0400
From: "D. L. Henderson" <"D. L. Henderson"@geac.com>
Subject: Re: 12.0591 Amazon.com & paper mills

Go to the JunglePage web page. Amazon.com is prominently listed as a sponsor.

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