Mohammad R. Arjomandi wrote > > As mentioned early in this list, using IP address is somehow unstable. In > addition, as the welcome message from internettrash.com shows, their > "existence" depends on advertising. > > WHY WE, AS FREE USERS, DON'T USE THEIR NAME? Why does SZS name his site as > http://209.236.159.6/users/WebSiteByEmail/ instead of > http://www.internettrash.com/users/WebSiteByEmail/ ? Good question! This is the way I see it ... When we sign up at InternetTrash, we agree to observe their Terms of Service. I intend to stick to both the letter and the spirit of those terms. If they change the Terms of Service to stipulate that I must always use a domain name in my signature, and not the IP address, then I will comply -- or I will close my account. It won't happen, of course -- because my signature is not part of their advertising. What they really depend on is not the advertising as such -- it is getting a lot of people to visit them and see the adverts, and it makes no difference whether those people link to 209.236.159.6 or to www.internetrash.com -- they end up in exactly the same place. There are no adverts on the home pages -- they are all elsewhere, eg: on site maintenance pages, etc. So who sees them? a) InternetTrash members who maintain their sites online -- by definition, that excludes all of us. None of us will ever see an ad, and it will make no difference to InternetTrash or to their sponsors, because they all target a USA audience, and most of us don't live there! b) Visitors to home pages who can be enticed into other pages. Examples: - Members can set up an InternetTrash message board (details later) which displays ad banners. - InternetTrash is setting up Chat Rooms that will also have ads. I don't think we have to worry about the profit status of InternetTrash -- they will take care of that themselves. If your home page brings in extra visitors, they will be happy with you. Your pages should of course, provide a link back to the InternetTrash Home Page (to be covered soon). There is no ethical dimension to this issue -- it is wholly practical. I am pleased that InternetTrash has provided this excellent email-only facility, but I try not to use their domain name because my pages are not trash. In fact there are some alternative domain names -- the following all map onto the same location as internettrash.com ... internetjunk.com internetgarbage.com internettoilet.com nettrash.com netjunk.com netgarbage.com nettoilet.com Of these, the least stupid is 'netjunk', so if I had to use a domain name, that is the one I would choose. The best way out of this dilemma would be to ask InternetTrash to provide a domain name with positive connotations. It costs very little to register a name, and almost nothing to park it on an existing server. If 100 email-only users with strong home pages requested it, they might listen! -- http://netjunk.com/users/WebSiteByEmail/