BT staff get a pizza the action at long last

The whole country, not to say the world, appears to be succumbing to the narcotic charms of cyberspace, whatever these may be. Otherwise sober, law-abiding people are spending long hours online after which they emerge bleary-eyed, disoriented and generally unfit for society.

But the case of the unnamed Dutchman suggests that the parallels between the electrical and chemical forms of addiction are closer than anyone thought. The man turned up at a drugs advice centre in Breda, Holland, seeking help for a 14 hour a day habit that is costing him ú100 a week and threatening to bring financial ruin. Mole can appreciate his concern: such a sum could be put to much better use - on cocaine or heroin, for instance. It all seems such a terrible waste.

Pushing for success
For the pushers, the so-called "access providers" and purveyors of online services, the pickings are rich. Companies such as CompuServe have grown fat on the trade in mind-altering products and increasingly tyrannical in their hold over the poor, hopeless addicts. One wrote to Mole last week: "Have you ever tried to make a clean break from CompuServe and discovered how difficult it is?" The answer, of course, is that Mole would not touch the stuff, but the rest of the message made interesting reading nonetheless.

The "user" in question, Simon Allen, found that when he terminated his CompuServe account, CompuServe continued to collect his Email rather than return it marked undelivered. Innocent enough, on the face of it and CompuServe is happy to admit it is company policy to keep an account open for the receipt of mail for six months after it has been closed. The user is entitled to collect the mail, of course, but only if the account is reactivated. As for CompuServe's assurances to Allen that the senders of undelivered mail would be notified accordingly, Mole is not convinced. Allen sent six messages to his old Email address and got no response, but the messages were all waiting for him when, to satisfy his curiosity, he reopened the account a few weeks later. If CompuServe resents having its tactics compared to those of a drug-peddler, Mole is happy to suggest an alternative. How about a wheel-clamper?

BT may not be the first name to spring to mind when you recall Internet service providers, but it still stands to be one of the main beneficiaries of the online revolution. Thanks to the UK's Internet junkies, millions of calls are now being made each year over BT's network that weren't being made before. Mole is delighted to hear that staff at the company's Computing and Services Division are to benefit in some small way from this latest swelling of BT's already massively distended coffers. The thousand or so CSD personnel have each been given a ú25 voucher for use at Pizza Hut or Threshers. Sadly for BT, only a few of the staff regard this gift as an act of spontaneous corporate generosity. The other 995 see it as a way to lift morale as the annual CARE staff survey looms, and have no intention of letting a deep crust pizza and a bottle of plonk get in the way of objective criticism.

Microsoft's paranoia is stuck in an iterative loop. The company is now paranoid about being paranoid and has entered an advanced state of denial. A PC Week reader from an office supplies retailer was invited to a seminar on MS Exchange run by service provider Stream International and held at Microsoft UK's Winnersh headquarters. Last week, the man got a call from Microsoft saying that Stream had decided that his company was a competitor and had cancelled his invitation. All attempts to convince Microsoft otherwise were met with the same response: "I'm just doing as instructed. It's nothing to do with Microsoft." Finally the man called Stream to take the matter up with them. "We don't know why Microsoft is doing this. We didn't ask it to. Of course you can come." If you happen to be at the seminar, which takes place this week, you may well run into this fellow: he'll be the one wearing a hunted expression and a Novell Groupwise T-shirt.

Advanced paranoia
Another example of paranoia reaches Mole courtesy of the organisers of the Networks 96 show which opens next Monday. So convinced are they that no one likes them, the organisers have been saturating potential visitors with invitations. One unfortunate soul has had no less than 20 direct requests to register, plus countless indirect approaches from exhibitors - all of which is a bit unnecessary because he registered more than three weeks ago. Is this a record? Let Mole know. As the founding fathers of the electronic New World continue their puritanical crusade against indecency, would-be customers all over the UK will find themselves barred from taking part in the information revolution simply because they live somewhere that sounds rude. Anyone from a town whose name contains one of the words banned under the draconian Communications Decency Act will find it difficult or impossible to get a connection to a US-owned service. First it was Scunthorpe. Next, no doubt, it will be Penistone, Cockermouth, Clitheroe and Prickwillow. Where will it all end?

Send your answer to this and other important questions to mole@vnu.co.uk. His Svelteness also takes personal calls on 0171 316 9068 and can be reached by fax on 0171 316 9840. Please remember: encrypt messages and to avoid bad language. You never know who's listening.

This column first appeared in the UK edition of PC Week, 18 June 1996.
Check out the last one to feature in Stuff - if you've got nothing better to do.