Newspaper's Attempt To Hide Competitors Only Helps The Competition

from the they'll-never-learn... dept

If you ever wanted a perfect example of the numerous ways in which newspapers are clueless about the internet, this may be it. The Portland Oregonian has rejected an ad from a company that sells items on eBay. We've written (skeptically, yes) about such companies before. However, the Oregonian makes the argument that this company competes with their classifieds, and thus, they won't allow the advertisement to run. This is something of a head-in-sand approach. If you pretend your competitors don't exist, maybe they'll go away. It's not about making any real competitive response to the threat. It's not as if the company won't find some other venue to spend its advertising dollars in, and that's money that the newspaper won't be getting. In fact, what's happened is that the company is getting plenty of free advertising thanks to the newspaper rejecting the ad.

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