News.Individual.NET not free of charge anymore
- Announcement 2005-02-15 (News.Individual.NET not free of charge anymore)
- Announcement 2005-03-23 (New payment option: Bank transfer to Freie Universitaet Berlin)
This is a copy of the announcement we made on 2005-02-15 in alt.free.newsservers:
Dear users of News.Individual.NET,
effective from April 1st, 2005, use of News.Individual.NET will not be free of charge anymore. The news service will continue as a fee-based service.
The details:
Effective immediately, registration for our news service is only possible through our web site:
Registration by e-mail (as hitherto) is no longer possible.
Holders of existing accounts who want to continue using their account need to convert it into a pay account. This is also only possible through our web site:
You will also find all details on payment options, terms of use, and terms of contract on the web site.
The time until March 31st, 2005, is a transitional period so that holders of existing accounts will have plenty of time for convenient conversion. Sign-up for new accounts or conversion of existing accounts made within the transitional period (before April 1st, 2005) will not cause any disadvantages:
Contracts concluded within the transitional period will last until March 31st, 2006 (Annual Subscription) or June 30th, 2005 (3 Months Subscription) without additional costs. Then the contracts will automatically renew themselves for another year or another three months respectively.
Important notes:
Effective from April 1st, 2005, all non-converted accounts will stop working.
Users who use the server News.CIS.DFN.DE as part of the DFNNetNews project are not affected by the changes described above. Nothing will change for these users, they do not need to do anything.
The fee:
The fee for an account for News.Individual.NET is 10 EUR per year (annual payment), that converts to only 0.84 EUR per month. The price includes the applicable VAT.
The background:
The tradition of running news servers at Freie Universitaet Berlin goes back as far as 1989 (historic keyword: "Methan"). The news service was open for external users ever since: Until 1992, there was no access restriction at all (as usual at that time). Later, a basic access management where IP numbers and domain names were added on request was established.
Starting with the CIS project (a third-party funded project of DFN) of ZEDAT of Freie Universitaet Berlin, the news service was expanded by the feature of registration for individual users in the beginning of the year 1998:
News.CIS.DFN.DE was born (see Message-ID: <6apqmg$rbe$1@fu-berlin.de>).
After the CIS project was finished in mid 2002, the administrators kept this service alive by maintaining it mainly in their spare time. Since this was not sustainable in perpetuity, options on how to raise money from external people and institutions for the provision and maintenance of the service had to be researched and created. Several approaches to find sponsors for the service eventually failed, especially due to the lack of understanding by the potential sponsors for the nature of Usenet.
Since July 1th, 2003, ZEDAT offers - again in cooperation with DFN - news services to other research and education institutions for money (service name: "DFNNetNews"). In the course of this cooperation, the server name "News.CIS.DFN.DE" vested exclusively to DFNNetNews:
"News.Individual.DE" and "News.Individual.NET" are the new server names under which the service is available for the more than 250,000 external individual users that were registered since the beginning of 1998.
After a long evaluation and preparation period, the service will convert to a fee-based service for these external individual users effective from April 1st, 2005. We regret that it is no longer possible to offer this service free of charge.
We would be very happy if our service convinced its users of its quality and of the engagement of its operators during the many years of its existence so that they decide to stay our users even if the service is not free of charge anymore.
Besides, we would - of course - like to thank all people that recommended our service over the years and used it responsibly and carefully in the spirit of Usenet!
Best regards,
the NetNews Team of Freie Universitaet Berlin
Glossary:
| CIS | = | DFN project "Center for Information Services" |
| DFN | = | Germany’s National Research and Education Network |
| ZEDAT | = | Computer Center of Freie Universitaet Berlin |
This is a copy of the announcement we made on 2005-03-23 in alt.free.newsservers:
Dear users of News.Individual.NET,
as announced via e-mail, news(*) and WWW(**) on February 15th, 2005, use of News.Individual.NET will not be free of charge anymore effective from April 1st, 2005. The news service will continue as a fee-based service.
The fee for an account for News.Individual.NET is 10 EUR per year (annual payment), that converts to only 0.84 EUR per month. The price includes the applicable VAT.
- (*) Message-ID: <2005-02-15.Commercial-EN@fu-berlin.de>
- (**) http://news.individual.net/commercial.php
Up to now, the only payment option available was payment through the financial service provider Firstgate (or their international partners, see http://firstgate.com/EU/en/international.html).
We are pleased to announce that we are now able to offer an additional payment option:
Bank transfer to bank account of Freie Universitaet Berlin
Within Germany (for holders of German bank accounts), bank transfer to our bank account is done as usual with bank account number and BLZ (Bankleitzahl, bank number).
For holders of non-German bank accounts, IBAN (International Bank Account Number) and BIC (Bank Identifier Code, SWIFT address) are available.
But please note that our bank account is configured to reject payments that are subject to bank charges on our site (this can particularly happen when transfering funds from foreign bank accounts). Please contact your financial institution before sending us money and ask them if and what charges apply (the charges can be huge depending on where you reside). And please make sure only to send us money by bank transfer if you pay for all charges.
To pay for your existing account for News.Individual.NET or to sign up for a new account, please go to:
https://news.individual.net/register.php
You can choose your preferred payment option (Firstgate or bank transfer) during the registration process. If you pay through Firstgate, your account will be activated as soon as we receive the acknowledgement of your payment from Firstgate. Normally, this happens instantly (real time). If you pay by bank transfer, your account will be activated as soon as your payment is booked to our bank account and recorded in our user administration system. You will receive an e-mail from us containing your account data when your account is activated and ready to use.
Please note:
- Due to administrative reasons, the 3 Months Subscription (5 EUR) is not available when paying by bank transfer. For this payment option, only the Annual Subscription (10 EUR) is available. If you prefer the 3 Months Subscription, please choose payment through Firstgate as your payment option.
- Processing times at the banks involved may take some days even when sending money from German bank accounts; bank transfers from foreign bank accounts may take significant more time. There is nothing we can do to speed up this process, and we cannot track your money for you. If in doubt, please ask the financial institution through which you made your payment.
- The fact that the payment has left your bank account does not mean that we have already received it.
- Handling payments made by bank transfer to our bank account is no fully automated process, it contains steps that require human attention. Of course, we try to activate your account as soon as possible, but we ask for your understanding that the time required may vary highly due to the afore mentioned reasons. If you need instant activation, please choose payment through Firstgate as your payment option.
- It is very likely that our banking account details (or banking account details allegedly ours) will soon circulate the net without our knowledge and approval. To protect you from fraud, and because we generate individual notes to payee for bank transfers to ensure correct payment allocation, we ask you to only use the bank transfer information that you receive from us during our web registration process.
Thank you very much for your interest, and we would be happy if you decide to stay or become our user even if our service is not free of charge anymore.
Best regards,
the NetNews Team of Freie Universitaet Berlin