As a 'vendor', and past longstanding representative of multiple vendors,
I have previously and again generally concur with the comments of John,
et al.  When a vendor uses practices which are alleged and/or viewed to
be inappropriate, even marginal ones, make sure they know you feel that
way, and let your colleagues know of your objections to the vendor.  The
best way to discourage an alleged inappropriate vendor practice is when
they go in with a sales pitch and have more and more labs saying "I won't
deal with you because you...."

Fellow vendors, let's stay on the up-and-up and employ valued resources
like the HistoNet to assist customer colleagues, and not use them to gain
an advantage.  These comments are not directed to any single vendor or
their alleged practices, but to all of us.

Peter
--
Peter A. Takes, Ph.D., RAC
Director, Clinical & Regulatory Affairs
STEREOTAXIS, Inc.
Ph. 1-314-615-6964; Pager: 841-9351
ptakes@stereotaxis.wustl.edu

J. A. Kiernan wrote:

> > ... I received a phone call from a state (FL) company wondering ...
> > ... She then proceeded to tell me, and I quote, "I got your name
> > ... off of the Histonet"
> > ... Well, I found this quite disturbing
>
>   So you should.
>
>   This could herald the Beginning of the End of our
>   wonderfully managed listserver. Let us pray that
>   this abomination will not spread. Let us also
>   make it clear to these objectionable advertisers
>   that we will never buy from them again if they
>   do not publicly repent, with much groveling, and
>   firmly resolve to avoid the occasions of sin.
>
>   Whatever you do, DON'T reply directly to any email
>   spam, and NEVER follow the advice to send a message
>   with "remove" in the Subject line"  This will confirm
>   that your address is still active, and the spamming
>   will increase. Send spam reports to the postmaster
>   of your own email server, who should know what to do.
>
>   If someone telephones you because of an email, report
>   him/her to everyone you can think of, and tell all
>   your friends never to buy anything from that
>   company again. Tell the wretched telemarketing kid
>   to tell his miserable boss that there are no takers.
>
>   If HistoNet gets to be seen as a bunch of 1000 or so
>   possible buyers, we'll all get targetted (if that's
>   a real word; "shot at" is more correct), and most of
>   us will unsubscribe. This will be sad, and the only
>   people receiving the junk email and phone calls will
>   be those who unscribe, unsusribe, ususcribe.
>
>  John A. Kiernan,
>  Department of Anatomy & Cell Biology,
>  The University of Western Ontario,
>  LONDON,  Canada  N6A 5C1
>