should 8-yr-olds be stopped from selling cookies online?

[karyn]

Girl Scouts Say Scout's YouTube Ad Violates Policy
ASHEVILLE, N.C. (AP) ―

from cbs13

A North Carolina Girl Scout's plan to use the Internet to generate more cookie sales is crumbling.

Eight-year-old Wild Freeborn posted a YouTube video in the hopes of selling enough boxes to send her troop to summer camp.

But scouting officials said it violated a ban on Internet sales and told her to take it down after she scored about 700 orders.

Freeborn told NBC's "Today" show Friday that she and her Web designer father, Bryan, had honorable intentions and took orders only from their hometown of Asheville. Her father says the ad was just promoting the cookies, so he thought it was OK.

Girl Scouts of the USA spokeswoman Denise Pesich says the organization wants to ensure fairness for all girls and the policy is to protect the girls' safety.

[Ajax Knucklebones]

Put out a website or shut the Hell up. Free enterprise. It's free, until you want to pay. Now DAT'S America!

Don't want to pay for a website? Welcome to "pushing your cookie shit at the local supermarket."...Like every other girl scout troop chick.

I think YouTube's right. Free advertising? No such thing.

[VoldtaEngler]

Ajax..I think you read it wrong. The GS's told her to take it down. Not youtube. There are a ton of ad videos out there on youtube..so it wouldn't make sense to target only the girl scouts.

[Ajax Knucklebones]

Got cha'. I'm drunk. Still though, I think it's wrong for a girl scout to sell her cookies using YouTube. Then EVERY girl scout would be using it. They're are ALL the same cookies. The "sell" really has to do with the "seller"...Not the means one has at the disposal. Wanna sell alot of cookies? Sell your personality. I'm pretty sure that's the best means.

Ahhh...Whatever. Do what is needed. That's whats gotten us into this recession in the first place.

Did I mention, I'm drunk. btw?....( :

[malcolm]

I think the gsa screwed up more when they decided to put the cookies in limited edition ice cream during the sale season more than this troop did doing a youtube video. much rather have my samoas dipped in chocolate ice cream anyday-that just kinda cuts out the middle man.

[Ajax Knucklebones]

I think the gsa screwed up more when they decided to put the cookies in limited edition ice cream during the sale season more than this troop did doing a youtube video. much rather have my samoas dipped in chocolate ice cream anyday-that just kinda cuts out the middle man.

I tried the "Thin Mints" Edy's Ice Cream. Ahh...Not that good. Cookies were too mushy. I say....Buy the cookies and crumble them up into whatever ice cream you choose. I think THAT would taste scrumpious!

[malcolm]

the thin mints are okay but i love the samoas. caramel and chocolate.........purrrrrr lol

[Ajax Knucklebones]

Samoas are delicious but I say spend the money on the cookies...Buy the ice cream (your favorite flavor) and combine. I have a feeling the taste and texture is better that way.

[malcolm]

meh im lazy lol. besides my favorite ice cream flavor is bubblegum....wouldnt work out so well lol

[Ajax Knucklebones]

Bubblegum ice cream is the shit. 31 flavors, yo!

[malcolm]

bnr beeyotch! ftw! woohoo!

[Amelia G]

I'm actually pretty dubious about weird exceptions to child labor laws. Either we think it is good for kids to work and it teaches them life skills or we think it is bad for kids to work and it exploits them. Frankly, I think removing the option of utilizing online marketing means that the Girl Scouts are certainly not teaching life skills for the new millennium.

[Ajax Knucklebones]

I'm actually pretty dubious about weird exceptions to child labor laws. Either we think it is good for kids to work and it teaches them life skills or we think it is bad for kids to work and it exploits them. Frankly, I think removing the option of utilizing online marketing means that the Girl Scouts are certainly not teaching life skills for the new millennium.

Ummm....Could that be possibly because that's exactly how you sell your wares? ( :

[malcolm]

i think it boils down to if the kids get the money they make or if they don't.
we never did cookie sales in the boyscouts. good thing too cus i was a "husky" kid back then and i probably would have been "huskier" if we did.

[Amelia G]

Ummm....Could that be possibly because that's exactly how you sell your wares? ( :

Fuck yes. I did the same stuff pre-internet that I do now. At a loss because I felt it was important. I have some issues with what the introduction of commerce has done to the scene, but having a way to make what I do feasible without setting fire to buckets of day job dough has its benefits and certainly is indicative of how an adult could make a living in 2009. If Girl Scouts are learning skills an adult could have used to make a living in 1959, that is just not very useful today.

[Amelia G]

i think it boils down to if the kids get the money they make or if they don't.
we never did cookie sales in the boyscouts. good thing too cus i was a "husky" kid back then and i probably would have been "huskier" if we did.

Having their Girl Scout madame take the girls' earnings makes child labor okay? If that were the case, there would be a lot of broke kids mining coal and letting their parents take the dough.

[malcolm]

well, its not okay but i dunno. my head hurts.

no i was meaning that around kids learning a valuable life lesson. usually when a kid does a job thats considered "learning a valuable life lesson" they usually don't get paid or get really crappy pay for the job they do.

i remember as a kid having to go out on repair jobs my dad did for his friends and only making like five bucks to go crawl around under their spider infested houses or apply insulation to walls. back then it was fun but now that i look back on it, i was robbed lol

[Amelia G]

well, its not okay but i dunno. my head hurts.

no i was meaning that around kids learning a valuable life lesson. usually when a kid does a job thats considered "learning a valuable life lesson" they usually don't get paid or get really crappy pay for the job they do.

i remember as a kid having to go out on repair jobs my dad did for his friends and only making like five bucks to go crawl around under their spider infested houses or apply insulation to walls. back then it was fun but now that i look back on it, i was robbed lol

I bussed tables at a "restaurant" called Mr. Gatti's which I believe later got in trouble for violating minimum wage laws and various other labor standards. If nothing was going on, then they would have people clock out over and over again. So, like, if it was not busy for 20 minutes out of an hour, you'd only get paid for 40 of the 60 minutes you were there. And the wages were low to begin with.

I did that job after my frosh year of college. I learned some important life skills there. I learned that nobody was going to just pay me because I worked hard and was willing to get my hands dirty. I learned that I needed to be able to make my own way. I actually did get a lot out of that job, even though I was quite literally rooked on the pay, at least by the labor laws of the time.

If I had done such a sucky job after my frosh year of high school, I might have thought more about practicality when I went to college. (I couldn't work in high school because I was living overseas.)

[malcolm]

yeah. i've had to learn that lesson a bit over the years. i still remember being a sudbuster at a pub back in memphis and losing the job cus the guy bet bad on the horses one day and coudlnt afford to pay me. and my lasty one where i was getting payed by the month and was basically running the store for minimum wage. it was a mess.

[toxicat]

Sorry, the yumminess distracted me from the topic.

[Morning Glory]

I think the girls should sell crack cocaine instead, then they'd really make a lot of money.

[ForrestBlack]

Put out a website or shut the Hell up. Free enterprise. It's free, until you want to pay. Now DAT'S America!

Don't want to pay for a website? Welcome to "pushing your cookie shit at the local supermarket."...Like every other girl scout troop chick.

I think YouTube's right. Free advertising? No such thing.

It's not really exactly totally free enterprise though. It's clearly broken out into specific territorial chunks, with fairly specific rules for their albeit adorable sales force. Teh interwebs was off limits for individual cookie sales people, mostly in my estimation because of the territorial issues it would immediately raise. That girl is crazy cute, but they did read the rules and they tried to skirt through a bit of a technicality, as I understand it. I also feel that the ability to network within one's real world local area is a life skill too many young people are missing out on, so I would counter the argument that they were encouraging behind the times skills.

[Anna Evans]

It's not really exactly totally free enterprise though. It's clearly broken out into specific territorial chunks, with fairly specific rules for their albeit adorable sales force. Teh interwebs was off limits for individual cookie sales people, mostly in my estimation because of the territorial issues it would immediately raise. That girl is crazy cute, but they did read the rules and they tried to skirt through a bit of a technicality, as I understand it. I also feel that the ability to network within one's real world local area is a life skill too many young people are missing out on, so I would counter the argument that they were encouraging behind the times skills.

In my neighborhood, most of the buildings must be entered with a key; if a girl scout stops by, she can't get into the building to actually contact anyone to sell cookies. I know that this doesn't apply to a good chunk of the country where the girls can go door to door, but I do think that for high density metro areas, it can be much more effective to contact people via the internet.

[ForrestBlack]

In my neighborhood, most of the buildings must be entered with a key; if a girl scout stops by, she can't get into the building to actually contact anyone to sell cookies. I know that this doesn't apply to a good chunk of the country where the girls can go door to door, but I do think that for high density metro areas, it can be much more effective to contact people via the internet.

Going door to door is generally viewed as less safe these days anyway. As I understand it, the effective girls hit up their parents workplace, the local fire department, set up tables at strip malls and grocery stores, etc. It's not that the internet isn't a natural place, it's just that it brings up territorial issues. Even this particular girl's Father pointed out that the guidelines for internet based sales are likely being worked on and just haven't been released yet. But, for the time being, the rules were the rules. They took a run at it, got shot down.

[bohoki]

she should be allowed to sell cookies on the internet if they do local pickup

but shipping the cookies is against the rules

the girls troops have regions and should not be competing with each other

they are to sell their cookies in their own area

otherwise the girl scout corporation would just sell them that way too