Official Statement from Right on the Web regarding the rejection of their Internet Link Exchange banner. The original e-mail exchange between ROTW and ILE regarding this matter is also available.

From www@rightweb.com Tue Aug  5 14:08:48 1997
Date: Tue, 05 Aug 1997 12:20:36 -0500
From: Right On The Web 
Subject: Statement From Right On The Web


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Right On The Web
http://www.rightweb.com
===============================================
For release: August 5, 1997
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For additional information:
public-relations@rightweb.com
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OFFICIAL STATEMENT FROM RIGHT ON THE WEB 

On August 5, 1997, Right On The Web (ROTW) received a letter from Carolyn
Gargaro who maintains a political web site located at: 
http://www.gargaro.com, notifying ROTW that the Internet Link Exchange
(ILE) may have made a false statement concerning the acceptance of our
Impeach Clinton '97 banner which now can be located at her web site at the
address: http://www.gargaro.com/censored.html.  After careful review,
Right On The Web has determined that there is a serious error in ILE's
statement which warrants correction.

ILE's statement of Monday, August 4, 1997 concerning our banner reads, "Of
the five banners on http://www.gargaro.com/censored.html only four were
submitted to us.  The first one was accepted and advertised."   

The banner in question that ILE claims was "accepted and advertised" is
ROTW's Impeach Clinton '97 banner.  This banner was in fact rejected by
ILE and then later advertised by ILE without ROTW's knowledge or
permission to do so.

The banner was rejected by ILE on Wednesday, April 2, 1997 in the
following letter to ROTW which reads:

"Hi,

	We are writing to let you know that we will not be able to 
advertise your newest banner.  In general, the LinkExchange does not 
advertise banners with a negative or adversarial tone.

	As such we can not run your "Impeach Clinton" banner, just as 
we would not run an "Impeach Gingrich" banner.

        We have to be strict on the content of the banners, because they
have the potential to appear on the upwards of 50,000 web sites, some of
whom may not agree with the content of the banner.  It is very important
to maintain the distinction between advertisement and editorial content.
For that reason we insist the banners be, in colloquial terms, as bland as
milquetoast. 

	We value your continued membership in LinkExchange, and look 
forward to advertising your site again when we have a blander banner.  
I think if you were to remove the "call to action" it would be fine.

	If you have any questions or comments, please let me know.
	
Thanks"

After several weeks had passed, ROTW's Linkmaster found our Impeach
Clinton '97 banner running in ILE's database.  Nobody at ROTW was notified
of ILE's reversal of their decision.  ROTW contacted ILE by e-mail
immediately on Tuesday, May 6, 1997 asking for an explanation of why our
banner was running at ILE when it was supposedly rejected.  ILE replied to
this request on Wednesday, May 7, 1997 declaring that they had sent ROTW
notification of the reversal, but suggested that ROTW must have "never
received it".  

It is ROTW's opinion that if we submit a banner to ILE and ILE rejects our
banner, ILE loses it's permission to advertise our property at a later
date unless we resubmit it---which we did not do, or they notify us of a
reversal---which ILE did not do.  The banner ran anyway and ILE received
an unknown amount of free advertising for it's site at our web site while
we at ROTW were led to believe that we had no banner running on ILE and
were working on creating another one.  It was at this time that ROTW
terminated it's membership with ILE for two reasons:

1.) Several other anti-Clinton sites had banners banned by ILE which, in
our opinion, were far less adversarial than ROTW's and it was not fair to
have our banner running in the ILE database while the banners from other
sites which share ROTW's political orientation could not enjoy the same
service. 

2.) ROTW feels that ILE dealt with us in an unfair manner regarding the
rejection of our banner and the reversal of that decision by ILE without
notifying ROTW of the ruling. 

To this date, ROTW still has not received the letter from ILE regarding a
reversal in their decision not to run our Impeach Clinton '97 banner.

At present, Right On The Web does not support the Internet Link Exchange
at it's web site and currently has no plans to change this format to
include any other type of banner exchange in the near future.

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