Late today there was a conference call for AOL Bloggers affected by the recent budget situation. Senior VP of Programming, Marty Moe, did most of the talking. For the most part, it was a warm fuzzy call that was clearly aimed at calming the fears of bloggers and bringing more clarity to budget situation.
It’s apparent that the message sent out to bloggers last week to stop posting was erroneous. Management wanted strict budget control for a week or so as the new budget process is refined. They did not want all posting to stop an any of the properties, and programmers who told their bloggers that were mistaken. (Yes, I was skeptical about how things were really supposed to go down, but after listening to Marty, I believe what I’ve written in this paragraph.) [Read more...]
With today’s announcement that Jonathan E. Johnson III has been appointed president of Overstock.com (NASDAQ:OSTK), it got me to thinking about the future of the company. I don’t think many people would argue with the suggestion that Patrick Byrne is one of the worst CEOs in the country. He has been for a while.
This week, it was announced that Usana Health Sciences (NASDAQ:USNA) and Fraud Discovery Institute had reached a settlement in their legal battle. Usana basically had most of its case thrown out by a federal judge, but still could have pursued allegations of illegal manipulation of the stock.
The most interesting thing about the whole case against Barry Minkow and FDI is that Usana repeatedly called the report issued by Barry “false and misleading.” Yet the company never addressed any of the substantive allegations in the report or proved that they were incorrect. And no one held their feet to the fire and demanded that they prove that what he said was false. [Read more...]
I’ve written a lot about what I think about LifeLock: That it’s not worth it and consumers shouldn’t waste their money. Even at only $10 per month, consumers are getting next to nothing. They certainly aren’t getting any meaningful protection above what is already available to them for free. Even the company’s CEO Todd Davis hasn’t been protected from identity theft with LifeLock.
And the “LifeLock Guarantee” is so worthless that I don’t expect the company will help any customer after they’ve been the victim of identity theft.
One of the ways that companies try to market their services is through the use of testimonials. People who are willing to say they love your product or service might induce others to buy too. LifeLock has testimonials on their site. They look impressive, until you analyze what they’re really saying. Take a look at the testimonials and my response: [Read more...]
At least Patrick Byrne, nutty and incompetent CEO of Overstock.com (NASDAQ:OSTK) can admit that he’s nothing more than a child who is playing grown-up with the shareholders’ money. From today’s press release:
“Jonathan has developed into a tremendous asset for our team,” said Patrick Byrne, chairman and CEO of Overstock.com. “He has gone from simply providing adult supervision for me, to being a fine, aggressive contributor across many facets of our firm’s operations. He has grown from being the lawyer working in business to a businessman who happens to be trained in the law.”
Who says something like that in a press release about an executive promotion? Apparently Patrick Byrne does, since he appears to have absolutely no professional judgment.
Rumor has it that the powers-that-be at AOL are upset because last week I published an article about the budget cuts. Well, I guess we’re not supposed to call them budget cuts. Depending on who you believe, the emergency budget cuts might not be emergency and they might not be cuts at all. Unless of course, the fact that almost all of the writers who are paid for each post they write, aren’t allowed to write (at least until further notice).
Part of the problem with the AOL budget crisis is that management didn’t have the story straight before they started talking to bloggers. [Read more...]
Judd Bagley, paid Overstock.com (NASDAQ:OSTK) cyberstalker (and now “Deep Capture reporter”) has openly admitted to using spyware against third parties. It has long been believed that he maliciously and inappropriately placed spyware on people’s computers, but this appears to be the first time he’s actually admitting to it.
Dan Schoenherr factoid
Back in the day (early to mid 2006), when I first started doing recon on the obviously paid bashers, my first master stroke was getting a tracking cookie placed on the laptop computer of Dan Schoenherr (also known as Wilburonefor3, HeadLizard, htis2008, etc, etc).
What made this so great, was being able to see where Dan was (based on his IP address) when he would access certain webpages.
As far as I know, putting spyware on someone’s computer without their knowledge or permission is not against any law. However, this certainly is completely unethical.
UPDATE: I must clarify my comments here. The ethics or lack thereof depend upon how Judd got the cookie on the computer. If Dan visited one of Judd’s sites, then a cookie could have been legitimately received. If, however, Judd used his methodology of secretly inserting tracking software in message board posts on sites he did not own, and where readers would have no reason to believe they’d be secretly receiving cookies from random outsiders, that would be unethical. Thanks for pointing this out to me, Judd. I forget that not everyone is aware of how your shenanigans work.
I’ve been writing for AOL on WalletPop (consumer finance site) and BloggingStocks (public company analysis and news site) since December and it’s been fun. Word came down today that there are big (hopefully temporary) budget cuts and everyone is to stop blogging immediately. I toyed with the idea of writing about it here, but wasn’t sure if that was okay or not…
Well… several people apparently talked to TechCrunch about it and they’ve reported it, so I see no need to hold my tongue. Here’s what TechCrunch had to say: [Read more...]
Ronald J. Riley, a consumer advocate who has historically worked on behalf of inventors, became aware of the ShopToEarn situation last week. He was very adamant that the threats made by attorney Gerald Nehra on behalf of Shop To Earn and Shop To Earth were inappropriate and amounted to nothing more than corporate bullying of bloggers.
This type of behavior is dangerous, however, if allowed to continue. Most bloggers would likely be scared off by a threat like the one Gerry Nehra issued to me and to Everyday Finance. They would take down their blog posts out of fear, probably not realizing that they have the legal right to express their opinions about people and companies.
So it’s important to stop attorneys from harassing and bullying bloggers in an attempt to silence their First Amendment rights. Mr. Riley offered Attorney Nehra to right his wrongs with this invitation: [Read more...]
Tracy Coenen is a forensic accountant and fraud examiner who investigates white collar crimes, including cases of financial statement fraud, embezzlement, tax fraud, and insurance fraud. She is the author of Essentials of Corporate Fraud and more than 100 articles on fraud featured in industry publications.
Tracy's Next Book
5 months and 19 days until my second book, Expert Fraud Investigation: A Step-By-Step Guide is published. Release date is February 9, 2009.
Ronald J. Riley, a consumer advocate who has historically worked on behalf of inventors, became aware of the ShopToEarn situation last week. He was very adamant that the threats made by attorney Gerald Nehra on behalf of Shop To Earn and Shop To Earth were inappropriate and amounted to nothing more than corporate bullying of bloggers.
