Last Updated April 28, 1997
Send comments to Roxanne Reid-Bennett (rox(at)tara-lu.com)
Short answer: NO.
Discussions of pricing issues are not allowed and will be cause for immediate removal from the list and possible revocation of your guild membership.
Keep these points in mind:
Short answer: YES (at least in Canada and the U.S. where most of our members are).
The U.S. and Canadian law specifically makes discussion of pricing between competitors (all or some) a federal offense. According to either Marshall Kragen or Lewis Rose (both practicing lawyers), several brokers in DC were successfully prosecuted for simply discussing an increase of fees at a dinner meeting.
When, where, or how doesn't matter. Any discussion of pricing by a group of people within the same industry is illegal in the U.S. and Canada. The "Feds" call it price fixing.
For additional information on the legal aspects of price fixing, please visit the following locations:
Freedom of speech is not necessarily guaranteed in every country. Pricing discussions do NOT fall under freedom of speech in the U.S. and Canada (according to our members who are practicing lawyers). Our lawyer friends have kindly (and in self-survival) pointed out that the Federal Law system in the U.S. and Canada consider pricing discussions by professional organizations to be price fixing which is a federal offense. This "consideration" position has been successfully proven in court.
Some of you have argued that other guilds and unions publish price guidelines based upon the stated prices charged by members. Guides are not discussions. Those guides have all company specific information stripped from them, every service has a range of prices associated with it, the prices are compiled and the contributors have become anonymous to the process. How the guide is used is up to the individual reader. What the HTML Writers Guild has forbid is discussion of prices.
To quote William Barr - who managed the main html list when this policy was created: "I was informally contacted by a member of a US federal law enforcement agency, warning me about the consequences of continuing the discussion. I didn't want to discover what a formal warning would entail."
Any list administrator that does allow price discussions is open to search and seizure of their equipment for contributing to the commitment of a felony. All of our lists are donated space, and even if they weren't - do we really want to loose our equipment over something that could be prevented?
Here's an outline of the boundaries. This list gives the range of acceptable and unacceptable topics on the guild lists.
Any numeric value that represents compensation for work done is unacceptable in discussions on the guild lists.
Types of services provided, levels of service, quality of service and such are acceptable.
Standard rates are published for most industries by independent sources. For those who are curious about where to get information about salaries, costs, etc, asking for, or providing pointers to information provided by independent 3rd parties is acceptable on the Guild Business Discussion List - [hwg-business].
Any statement in email to a guild list to the effect of : "that's a good price, we'll use that." that implies or directly states that two parties have discussed a number (whether on the list or in reference to a 3rd party page) and that they have "agreed" to use that price is strictly forbidden on the guild mailing lists. This is price fixing, this is collusion, this is prosecutable!
If you don't think possible prosecution is a big deal, ask Phil Zimmerman how much money was spent on his defense over the last few years for the creation of PGP, or how many times he wondered whether he would ever get his life back.
If two people wish to take on a private discussion, that is their affair. The Guild and its members cannot prevent, nor does it have any interest in, a discussion between individuals. The Guild and its members as a group will not knowingly participate in or condone any discussions that may be construed as "price-fixing".
The Guild consists of so many different types of members that any statement here would be insufficient for most of them. If you need to know, then go to the public sources available locally for that kind of information. The following sources exist in almost any geographical location in the U.S.:
Each geographical location has different costs, different services, and different markets. Asking a person in Los Angeles CA USA what they make or charge for a particular service really doesn't apply to someone in Dodge City KS USA because the costs and markets are totally different. It applies even less in say: Sao Paulo, Brazil.
Below are other resources where pricing information may be found. If you know of another site or mailing list, then please contact the FAQ maintainer (rox(at)tara-lu.com) with that information.
URL: /faqs/priceFAQ.html
Copyright © 1997 by the HTML Writers Guild.
Please see our legal statement.
This page is maintained by: Roxanne Reid-Bennett rox(at)tara-lu.com
Last
update: 28 April 1997 by: Roxanne Reid-Bennett
