My blog is (or will be) dichotomous. As a web developer, I intend to devote a lot of space to design and technology. Currently though, it's just the other half of the coin: politics.
Peter Daou has an elegant explanation of how the right-wing media is slandering the political left (although he as much a victim as anybody else -- he can't quite bring himself to call them right-wing). This article is required reading for anyone interested in the truth.
In response to the article, Peter received a lot of comments asking "what needs to happen?" I'd like to offer a few suggestions here:
The Republican party, by strength of their own scandals, no longer has the political will for the nuclear option. That means Democrats could have filibustered an extremist nominee with impunity. Knowing that, Bush was stuck.
If you haven't already noticed, every occurance of the word "robot," "robots" or "robots.txt" in this post is linking to the "robots.txt" file over at the whitehouse.gov website. The file comes up on a simple Google search.
The data alluded to in that file is very interesting. It's probably nothing, but then again, who knows with this administration. Check out some of the directories being blocked:
The list goes on and on. It legitimately looks like they just tacked /iraq onto the end of everything but then you come across whole blocks of directories with no mention of Iraq, for example:
Sure, you're thinking "the First Lady has nothing to do with Iraq so that must be the exception." But there are an awful lot of /iraq folders under /firstlady too. And there are folders other than /firstlady that are noticeably absent the /iraq folder. What does it mean? Was there some plot underway to link 9/11 to Iraq? Well of course there was. Energy? Well, that's a no-brainer too. But what the hell is the deal with climate change and the 300 other /iraq folders?
Acting on an emergency request from the American Red Cross, the FCC on Friday handed over control of the toll-free number 1-800-RED-CROSS to the nonprofit group, unceremoniously plucking it from the hands of corporate digit-squatters who'd been hoping for a six-figure payday.
It goes on to lay out details, put forth by both sides, regarding the ownership of the number and its intended use. I tend to trust Wired magazine and, as a web developer, I take offense to squatters. In my world, people often try to pounce on domain names only to sell them to their rightful owners for exorbitant amounts of money. I took it upon myself to write a harsh (and emotional) email to Steve Parker, chairman of 800-Ideas.com, the company that owned the RED-CROSS number:
Now that the FCC has found in an emergency ruling that the 800-RED-CROSS number rightfully belongs in the hands of the Red Cross I want to express my sincere desire that you will transfer the name immediately.I just called the number and it is obviously still under your control, with an 800-Ideas.com message being played.
People are dying. Somebody calling that number to make a donation could end up providing the food, medicine, or shelter that saves one of those people. Have you watched TV lately? It's a nightmare in New Orleans right now.
I'm trying to be as polite and professional about this as possible, but I have to ask: how do you people sleep at night? Seriously. Is the money more important than people's lives? I'm not just speaking to the company but to any individual who reads this.
I could have done without that last paragraph, but watching the news had made me rather emotional about the subject. I've also had a long simmering problem with the idea that greed is a virtue, even at the expense of others. Greed is never a virtue. Capitalism can be a good thing, even a great thing, but it has to be balanced with the needs of society and even with the needs of individuals. Which doesn't seem to be happening these days.
A reporter would have sought clarification and asked questions regarding the Wired article. I am not a reporter. That doesn't mean that I can't improve my truth-seeking skills somewhat. And I will try to do that in my follow-up message. First though, I received two responses to my original email. The first came from David Sprouse, the President/CEO of 800-Ideas.com:
We WERE routing the calls to Red Cross Chapters...now that they have taken control of the number, we cannot control the routing and they have left it pointed to my business....Mr. Connor has actually stopped the service we were providing and left callers unable to use the number. The Wired magazine article contains lies and does not give the facts and my company is suffering because of it!
I have no way of knowing if this is true or not, except to try and ask the parties involved. As you can see, Mr. Sprouse was also in an emotional state of mind. I can imagine the amount of emails and calls that the Wired article generated. Frankly, I'm amazed that I received a personal response at all, but I actually received his reply only a few hours after sending my message.
Today I received a second email. This one is much longer and includes the company's letter to the FCC. It was sent to me by Steve Parker, the Chairman:
In response to your email in which you chose to rail against our company, I am enclosing our company response to the FCC. In the future please remember there is always another side to any story. We have found through this experience that the people of the press who write these scathing articles seem to have more interest in hurting someone than telling the truth. The author of the article you read knew both sides of the story but chose to print only the portions of the interview required to induce a reaction from people like yourself.
Below that was the copy of the letter to the FCC. Because of it's length, I'm including it after my comments.
Squatting is squatting, no matter what. We live in the digital age, the multimedia age, the age of information. Taking the name of a company, especially a non-profit, in order to make a profit, is wrong and there should be remedies available to sort that sort of thing out. That includes assuming another company's name as your own, buying their domain name, or buying their vanity phone number.
In defending his company, Mr. Parker states to the FCC that the number is both a direct source of revenue and an indirect source of revenue. The direct source is by charging a per minute fee (never more than three cents above their operating cost) for routing calls to local Red Cross chapters. The indirect source is the prestige that comes with claiming they are working with the Red Cross. Both sources of revenue are being derived from the Red Cross, which seems more of an indictment than a defense. Besides, can you really hold someone's property for ransom and then claim a working relationship with them when they pay up?
Mr. Parker levels some pretty strong accusations concerning this situation. He claims some pretty damaging things were said and done by Mr. Chuck Conner, "who represented himself as the head of marketing and communications for the National Red Cross." Things that are most likely very difficult, if not impossible, to verify. However, it's probably tamer fare than that typically found in a courtroom and I wouldn't presume to deny 800-Ideas.com their right to defend themselves. Especially since I cannot rule out the possibility that Mr. Parker is telling the truth, either in whole or in part.
When I have had time to fully read, digest, and formulate my response and questions, I will be contacting people on all sides of the matter to seek clarification. I'll keep you posted. In the meantime, you can read the letter to the FCC and form your own opinion. Again, it is very long. I recommend you put a pot of coffee on before starting:
I certainly understand the focus on enhancing telecommunications for the victims of Hurricane Katrina as a priority. As such, we had voluntarily made arrangements to route calls to Red Cross chapters even before the order was issued. These arrangements are made utilizing the software and hardware we developed for the Red Cross Chapters which have used our services for over 5 years now. However, I want to make it clear that this decision by the FCC is being disputed by 800Ideas.com, Inc. for several reasons. As I am still trying to assess the meaning of all that has been ordered and have some preliminary questions for which I would appreciate some answers.
- Why was there a conflict as to whether this order was for 3 months or 1 year?
- If the justification for this temporary transfer of our Rights is because of the immediate crisis, then how can a period of one year be justified?
- Why was this decision reached without my company being notified that such an issue was under consideration by the FCC?
- Why were we not given an opportunity to be heard before the FCC reached its decision?
- Why where we not given the opportunity to refute the representations that were made in support of the transferring of the number with which we disagree?
- Please explain the extent of the relationship between the current emergency and this decision?
- What is considered "the reasonable cost of relinquishing the number" and who determines that value?
In addition, I would like to reiterate that at no time did 800Ideas.com represent to the American Red Cross that it would sell the number for any amount of money. We have been using 1-800-733-2767 for nearly 20 years. It wasn't until 1998 that we were approached by the local Red Cross chapter in Atlanta who told us they would like to use 1-800-733-2767 for local fund raising, blood drives volunteering and as an informational number. Their frustration stemmed from the fact that all calls to 1-800-HELP-NOW were directed to the National Red Cross and they had no good easy to remember telephone number for their own local fund raising activities.
We agreed to share the number with them under very specific terms to avoid exactly what has happened now. The contract signed by the Red Cross specifically acknowledges that this sharing of the number in no way gives them any rights to the number or diminishes our Rights. We developed software and hardware that allowed us to route calls to specific chapters based on where callers were calling from. In addition we created an emergency plan that allowed us to let callers know to contact 1-800-HELP-NOW in certain circumstances. Suddenly these chapters had a great business tool for generating local donations, announcing local blood drives and other local Red Cross events. Over the years, a few other Red Cross chapters embraced the same concept. When national disasters happened we would voluntarily, at our own expense, play an automated message to callers instructing them to call 1-800-HELP-NOW to reach the American Red Cross or stay on the line for 800Ideas.com, Inc. We never charged any Red Cross chapter for the development of the routing software, maintenance, updates (such as area code and routing tables), and transport cost whenever we invoked our emergency plan, etc. We only charged the chapters a competitive per minute fee for the calls that were actually connected to them. We took pride in supporting the local Red Cross chapters by meeting their specific local needs at competitive rates. This went on for years....through 9-11, through the tsunami....until now.
I would like to address the letter dated September 2, 2005 from Ms. Mary Elcano (General Council & Corporate Secretary for the National Red Cross) wherein she states "The American Red Cross's national organization has been trying to obtain the right to use the telephone number 1-800-733-2767 (1-800-RED-CROSS) for quite some time." This may be true, but my first conversation with any representative of the National Red Cross took place less than 3 months ago. It came from a Mr. Chuck Connor (who represented himself as the head of marketing and communications for the National Red Cross). It also must be noted that we have had very little contact with Mr. Connor, as I recall, only two brief telephone calls and one meeting. In one of the phone calls he indicated that he would like to gain control of the number nationwide. I indicated that this number is in use by my company and is a source of revenue, a marketing tool and a means for potential clients to reach my business. I also pointed out that under the existing FCC guidelines; no one has the authority to "Buy Sell, Barter, or Trade Toll Free numbers". His response was that he wasn't concerned with the FCC regulations and if he acquired the number the FCC would approve it. Mr. Connors then volunteered to travel to San Diego and meet with us. He flew to San Diego and stayed at the Hotel Del Coronado (one of San Diego's most expensive luxury hotels) He also told us he attended a Padres game before meeting with us the previous day. It is sad to see the generous donations of individual hard working Americans, who surely thought they were helping victims of a disaster, be used to pay for luxury accommodations for Mr. Connor and his entourage.
When explaining to the FCC about our shared use services, Ms. Elcano stated in letter "The cost for these services is quite high as compared to the going rate for telecommunication services." I believe we have the most competitive shared use service in America. We are not a carrier and do not have a network of switches. I must say that we have never charged more than 3 cents above our cost, NOT INCLUDING TAXES. Ms. Elcano states "1-800-IDEAS.COM has implied to the Red Cross in telephone conversations that 1-800-IDEAS.COM would be willing to relinquish the number to the American Red Cross in return for compensation in excess of $1,000,000.00." This is a blatant lie; we have never offered a price to him or anyone. We don't know how one can sell a number under current FCC regulations; Mr. Connor led us to believe he knew something no one else knew, so we agreed to meet with him.
In June of 2005, I, my Vice President and my attorney Ms. Bahrambeygui met with Mr. Connor and Ms. Lane in Ms. Bahrambeygui's office. Mr. Connor began the meeting by stating he was going to include the Red Cross attorney via a conference call. This turned out to be only partially true as he also had on the phone 4 other attorneys which he failed to tell us were also on the line. I believe one of these attorneys's to be Ms. Elano. Mr. Connor and Ms. Lane opened this meeting by reminding us if the many services provided by the Red Cross then offered to barter their national marketing services associated with the Red Cross brand and national recognition for our "donation" in exchange for the number. During this meeting, Mr. Connor also made the statement we either give him the number or he "would take it away." We realize that the number, as a vanity number for the Red Cross, is a powerful marketing tool like 1-800-HELP-NOW, 1-800-GIVE-LIFE, 1-866 GET-INFO and 1-800-LOVED-1S (all currently used by the Red Cross) and could certainly be used to generate additional revenue for their business perhaps in the millions of dollars over time. So while it has a business value to the American Red Cross in the millions of dollars, its also has a value to us as to the new customer leads it generates for my company, the prestige of servicing the Red Cross and the revenue generated by sharing the number with Red Cross chapters in various geographic regions. Very specifically, we pointed out that we would be happy to provide service for all Red Cross chapters throughout the United States in the same manner we were currently providing service for some chapters. Mr. Connor summarily dismissed the idea and wanted nothing less than complete control of the number, no negotiations. I told him we were not going to simply relinquish this number which was and had always been in legitimate use by my company. I also asked Mr. Connor if he knew of a legal way of achieving his goal, we would be happy to consider a proposal. That meeting was over two and a half months ago; we have yet to hear a word from Mr. Connor or anyone from the National Red Cross.
Toll free numbers have value to every business wanting to eliminate the cost barrier for a consumer to reach them. As such 1-800-733-2767 has a value to my business and others. In addition, toll free numbers whose digits can be translated into various memorable words or phrases may increase consumer's use of the number. In that light you could tell people 1-800-733-2767 also spells 1-800-RED-ARMS, 1-800-PED-CROSS, 1-800-SEE-CROPS, 1-800-S.D.-FARMS, etc. If the criterion for using a toll free number is dependant on whether or not it spells something relevant to your business, I suspect you may soon be inundated with requests to reassign numbers to people who want to take advantage of their vanity spellings. No where in any FCC regulations does it indicate that using the mnemonic version of a number gives you superior Rights to use the number.
Since the "Emergency Transfer" of September 2, 2005, there have been over 34,000 call attempts to 1-800-RED-CROSS. Most of them were routed to various Red Cross chapters. I suspect, and SBC can certainly confirm, that there were probably over ten million call attempts to 1-800-HELP-NOW in the same time span. That means that less than three tenths of one percent of the people trying to reach the National Red Cross are "dialing the wrong number". Every television station, radio station, newspaper and even the President of the United States himself is urging people to call 1-800-HELP-NOW. There are very few people who have not been trained to dial that number. Further, many of the calls to 1-800-RED-CROSS are only made out of frustration by people who dialed 1-800-HELP-NOW and couldn't get through.
You might ask yourself, "How do I know there were roughly 34,000 call attempts to 1-800-RED-CROSS since September 2, given that you ordered the immediate transfer of the number which was completed on Sept. 2nd. The answer is that while Mr. Connor and Ms. Elcano of National Red Cross used this emergency to convince the FCC that this number was in direly needed by the Red Cross and had complete control of the number on Sept. 2nd, they did not bother to change where the calls went. That's right; as of this morning, 6 days since they told the FCC that it was absolutely critical to the storm victims that they get this number immediately, Mr. Connor and Ms. Elcano have done nothing with their newly acquired number. At 1:55 EST today, they finally routed the calls away from us and in fact, stopped routing them to the Red Cross completely. Instead, they now play a simple recording that says please call 1-800-HELP-NOW making the number even less useful. They only reacted when a Mr. Roland from the Bloomberg news organization called Mr. Connor of the National Red Cross today and asked him why the number was still pointed to 800Ideas.com. So, what was a tool to connect people to local Red Cross chapters is now a dead end that forces contributions to go directly to National (if you can get through) and the local chapters are shut out again. During this 6 day period we voluntarily, at our own expense, continued to route the calls to we were receiving on 1-800-RED-CROSS to individual participating chapters where appropriate or Red Cross National because it was important to us, apparently more important to us than to Mr. Connor and Ms. Elcano.
This action by Mr. Connor and Ms. Elcano clearly shows there was no dire need for the number as express by Ms. Elcano's September 2 letter to the FCC. Mr. Connor and Ms. Elcano have attempted to portray 800Ideas.com Inc. as a company hoarding a number, in fact Mr. Connor was recently quoted as saying, "We're not going to be paying seven figure sums to some West Coast boiler-room operation for a number we should have had in the first place."(emphasis added). From this statement it is clear that Mr. Connor's intent is to take control of this number no matter who it may harm. To date Mr. Connor, Ms. Elcano and the American Red Cross have libeled and slandered my company and they have effectively stopped all communications, donations and volunteers from reaching local Red Cross chapters via 1-800-RED-CROSS. Meanwhile we have gone out of our way to support the Local Chapters of the Red Cross and are willing to continue and expand that support, while Mr. Connor and Ms. Elcano have told the FCC a list of half truths and down right lies to trick you (the FCC) into an immediate and ill informed course of action.
I applaud the FCC for being sensitive to the needs of the hurricane victims and trying to do anything that might to help them. I also would ask the FCC to applaud us, for our years of work with Red Cross chapters up until 1:55 EST today, for re-routing to Red Cross chapters, at our own expense (utilizing our software and hardware and our telephone lines) the 34,000 incoming 1-800-RED-CROSS calls, even after such a devastating order from the FCC. You see since your emergency order Mr. Connors and Ms. Elcano would have left the calls to 1-800-RED-CROSS completely unanswered for the last 6 day.
Unfortunately the FCC has been duped; Mr. Connor and Ms. Elcano have taken advantage of this national catastrophe and the overwhelming pressure on the FCC to provide immediate and decisive assistance in recovering from the disaster by providing the FCC with misleading, incorrect and false information to purposely dupe the FCC into rushing into this course of action. Their letter of Sept. 2 and the fact they have not even ported the number to their own network shows what they were trying to accomplish, 'use Katrina to DUPE THE FCC into waiving the well thought out regulations that are in place and stop the number from being routed to the local chapters.'
I've spoken with an executive at the San Diego Chapter of the Red Cross, the one referenced in Ms. Elcano's letter. Red Cross National had not informed him of there plan or consulted with him regarding the benefits the local chapter was receiving using this number through 800Ideas.com, Inc. He indicated that this decision will be devastating to their local effort as so much of their marketing material and fund raising efforts are all promoting people to call 1-800-RED-CROSS, which now dead ends to a recording and suggests they call the national number which he agreed was already above capacity.
Since we began using the number to assist local Red Cross chapters, we have spent what I estimate to be in excess of $300,000.00 on expenses associate with this number (which includes development of the routing software, maintenance of the area code and routing tables, hardware, transport cost, etc.) which in turn has supported the efforts of the Red Cross chapters throughout America. We saw a need for the public to reach the Red Cross at a local level and filled it. Mr. Connors greed has blinded him to this fact, caused great harm and made a mockery of the FCC's own policies.
Mr. Connors actions have stripped this communications tool from local Red Cross chapters and taken this potentially valuable communication channel and pointed it to a dead end. He did so only after days of no action what so ever. His use of the number has gone against every reason he provided to the FCC to persuade you to waive your own regulations. I ask you to transfer the Rights this number back to 800Ideas.com, so that we may immediately restore service to the local Red Cross chapters and the American public trying to reach them.
I look forward to your responses and would be happy to provide any additional information you require.
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