Thanks

Doug Watts
Augusta, Maine

A couple things: When i think spam, I think of some computer program firing off junk e-mail at will. I don’t see how Oceana posting the same duplicate comment qualifies as spam. A real person took time to read the post and further paste information. How is that different than going door-to-door to share your message with people?

Secondly, if Oceana has the sense to put an intern to work reading the press and commenting on blogs or news articles that reference their campaign, I say kudos — wait to be ahead of the curve. The Internet is vast (like our oceans and it’s not like bloggers are exactly united in “raising awareness” about the threat of mercury in seafood. There’s a lot of isolation in cyberspace, yet Oceana has the potential to unify people to make a difference on this issue. If NGOs want to continue making strides toward positive change like Oceana does, they’re gonna have to find innovative ways to spread their message. Therefore, to answer your question, it IS clever activism, and it’s likely many more NGOs will follow suit if they haven’t done so already.

Thanks for your time.

Happy surfing

But while I’m here, and among friends, let me point out that in our campaign to prevent mercury releases and minimize human exposure, we are dealing with some tough opponents that are posting their brand of false and misleading information everywhere. We are doing our best to set the record straight. That includes posting our message in multiple places much like other conservation groups have done.

So, ok, maybe we should revise the language, and certainly we should be transparent that it’s coming from us — but the purpose is letting people know about the mercury problem, and getting stores to post signs. I hope we can at least agree that this is a valuable role and one that benefits consumers – and hopefully also contributes to the momentum for getting mercury out of the environment.

Spam it is…

Tom