Around about Tuesday, September 16, 2003, Jami Moore took keyboard in 
hand and wrote:  

> The reason pricing is not discussed is because in the US it is illegal
> and the HWG could be sued on the grounds of "price fixing". 

Uhm... I'm not a lawyer (I don't even play one on TV), but AFAIK, 
talking about what prices other people charge for their services or 
products for the purpose of evaluating whether you want to *purchase* 
those services or products isn't "price fixing". It's only price 
fixing if you're discussing amongst yourselves the prices *you* are 
going to charge for your services or products, with an eye towards 
setting a "going rate" independent of market forces. In other words, 
if can't be price fixing if you're a *buyer*, only if you're a 
*seller*.

So unless the majority of the people here are in the business of 
offering e-mail newsletter / bulk mailing services and are posting 
prices in an effort to convince their fellow newsletter services to 
charge more for their services, members posting the prices these 
services charge (and evaluations of the reliability of their service) 
is NOT price-fixing. It's comparison shopping, and it's a time-
honored component of the free-market system.

If that were "price fixing" then services such as MySimon.com would 
be illegal, since they show comparitive prices between various 
vendors and give ratings on those vendors.

I understand the concerns of the moderators and owners of the HWG 
lists, and I agree completely that discussing what prices to charge 
for the services *we* offer could put us on shaky legal ground 
(although I personally think the danger is overstated, given the 
relatively small market share I suspect is held by the members of 
this list compared to the total Web Design / Web Hosting / Web 
Development industry). However, giving other members the benefit of 
our experiences, and sharing the results of our research into 
prices/features/reliablity of services that we may all be interested 
in using is called "being a useful mailing list," NOT price fixing.

--Diane Aull

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