open access:

. . . unrestricted entrance and exit; unencumbered ingress and egress as accessibility for all visitors and users or participants; unobstructed, as in full view; not blocked, shut or closed. The expression open and free or free and open suggests free access.

This definition continues with a focus on OA (Open Access) as related to using the Internet: In short, OA literature is digital, online, free of charge and free of most copyright and licensing restrictions. Ideally, the only restriction on use is an obligation to attribute the work to the author (source of quote). That same source, the Open Society Foundations website, also states that the definition of open access is . . . free availability on the public internet, permitting any users to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of these articles, crawl them for indexing, pass them as data to software, or use them for any other lawful purpose, without financial, legal, or technical barriers other than those inseparable from gaining access to the internet itself. The only constraint on reproduction and distribution, and the only role for copyright in this domain, should be to give authors control over the integrity of their work and the right to be properly acknowledged and cited. Wikipedia shows essentially the same quote in its Budapest Open Access Initiative article.

A commercial and open access environment exists on the Web. The open access concept implies that certain publications, websites, and networks online are publicly available to the extent that transaction privileges are provided to users without cost or obligation. Its an Internet ethics requirement that users not claim something as their own when it's freely available. One should not commercialize that which is freely shared. The open access concept works to the extend that Internet users respect the rights of others.

The share network maintaining this glossary is open access. Forming the working relationships that bind .network users with resource and service providers (mission contacts) requires an understanding and respect for the open access concept.

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Commercialism and the Internet:

The Free Dictionary defines commercialism as the . . . practices, methods, aims, and spirit of commerce or business and as an . . . attitude that emphasizes tangible profit or success (source of quote). Weaving the Web defines the Internet as . . . A global network of networks through which computers communicate by sending information in packets (source of quote). See open access defined at the top of this page for comments about the coexistence of commercial and non-commercial websites.

The trustworthiness of commercial websites that come through search results or resource and service providers, including those operating open access websites might be questionable. Questions about usefulness, value or security of information as well as about search efficiency arise. It is the thinking of some, especially exponents of open access, that questions about hypercommercialism and the Internet should be included.

What is hypercommercialism?

The following definition of hypercommercialism stems from review of a publication titled Battleground: the Media (2008), edited by Robin Andersen and Jonathan Gray:

Hypercommercialism is in your face advertising and promotion. It is intense sales and marketing clutter that distracts, for example, television viewers, taking their eyes and ears away from what has their interest. Were it not for the conditioning of audiences to accept such without protest, commercial messaging clutter would likely be protested as vulgar.

It is suggested that air-commercial messaging has riled up media analysts and public interest groups to the point that they criticize hypercommercialism for being an inescapable intrusions on everyday life. Hypercommercialism is advertising and promotion that shows up in the form of pop ups as well as script and set manipulations of television shows and movies. The trend of increasing pop ups in front of substance at commercial websites appears to be increasing. A plethora of websites offer free resources but may disappoint because they in fact turn out to be only sales pitches.

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