I believe I said the opposite; I said a failure to have standards will cause problems.

They reviewed the advertisements with their clients directly. There were a few hundred per day and it was a manageable problem. Now, advertisements may be served by proxies and selected from among tens of thousands of potential ads, designed to be targeted to readers in specific geographic regions, income levels, purchasing habits, interests, age categories, gender, education level, or other factors.

The point of my post was that the combinatorial explosion of possible advertisement choices to be served-up on my specific page load may not be easily reviewable by NYT staff a priori.

The concern I have over the long term is that sites like the NYT may not know what advertisements will appear because they are placed by bulk-buying proxies that dispense them at page-load time, probably based on evil-cookie trails or other demographic markers. So, the question becomes: how should a presumably high-integrity site such as a major news outlet ensure quality when they've outsourced advertisement delivery?

Review of each possible advertisement would be onerous, but failure to have some standards in place will eventually lead to malware (or worse) injected into unsuspecting reader's machines. I just chuckled when it popped up. I run Macs at home. But, when things like this happen to family members running PCs (and we get the phone call) it stops being funny pretty quickly.

Is there a business case for reviewing advertisements (and the associated mobile code whether it be FLASH, etc.) for a 21st century "Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval"? After all, the NYT and others are just one virus (or porn advertisement) away from a PR nightmare.

"Collage" project? Like what? A mural? Quilt? Mobile? Or is it a "College" project, something students might assist with? Since it was marked, "Insightful", I think I'd like to see the artwork produced...

The problem with this story is that it isn't clear where the sale has taken place. I click a button in Massachusetts, paid for the object with money from a Connecticut bank, the company hosting the web site is in New York, the headquarters of the company is in Arkansas, the shipment is made from New Hampshire, my mom receive the materials in Illinois (I dropped shipped her a gift). Where was the sale? I don't know what the right answer is... but I'm certain that state legislatures rushing to get something passed will end up making a mess bigger than the one they find themselves in now. I don't blame Amazon for pushing back. If I were Amazon management I'd be doing the same thing.

Debates over the "feel of paper" or "convenience of electronic delivery" aside, and assuming you could live with either, the economics are interesting. If you're committed to getting the paper, even the very expensive Kindle DX pays for itself in about a year (plus or minus). The difference, of course, is the paper delivery bleeds you a little week-by-week so you don't notice it. The Kindle DX is a big purchase outlay of nearly $500 to get started. But, again, after about a year things are close to break-even, depending on your usage. (Note this assumes home delivery prices won't go up!)

Here are the numbers for delivery in my area:

New York Times Home Delivery (paper)
14.80 (per week) Daily (769.60 yearly)
10.40 (per week) "Weekender" Fri-Sun (540.80 yearly)
7.50 (per week) Sunday only (390.00 yearly)
7.40 (per week) Weekdays Mon-Fri (384.80 yearly)

Kindle Daily Edition $13.99/mo (167.88 yearly)
Year of NYT + 489.00 Kindle DX = $656.88 (vs $769.60 for paper)

Sunday single issue NYT ($0.75/wk) $39
Year of Sunday NYT + 489.00 Kindle DX = $528 (vs $390 for paper)
Two years of Sunday NYT + Kindle DX = $567 (vs $780 for paper)

Boston Globe Home Delivery (paper)
9.00 (per week) Daily (468.00 yearly)

9.99 (per month) Boston Globe Kindle Edition ($119.88 yearly)
Year of the Globe + 468.00 Kindle DX = $608.88 (vs $468.00 for paper)
Two years of the Globe + Kindle DX = $728.76 (vs $936.00 for paper)

The funny thing is the Boston Globe probably loses money on the $9.00/week paper subscription but makes good profits on the 33-cents per day Kindle edition. If true, electronic delivery of the paper might be the only thing that could save it. Imagine that...