Voice of the Homeless Award Winners - You Be The Judge of
Theodore Latham (tedrico@hotmail.com)
Wed, 05 Aug 1998 10:08:18 PDT
ATTN: Select Tedrico's Page Voice of the Homeless Winners
I'm sure you've noticed by now that your Voice of the Homeless
Award logo has disappeared. That is just one of many Tedrico's Page site
depended items and aspects that have ceased to function since the abrupt
and wrongful deletion of the entire Homelessness, Hitchhiking,
Panhandling, and Homeless Programs website by XOOM.COM's webmaster
(Bruce) on 7/30/98. I am truly sorry for the empty spot that now exists
on your web pages.
Why would XOOM.com do a thing like that you ask? Well, read my
response to their webmaster's response (if you may call it that) which
are both included below. Pending Webmaster Bruce's next response, the
Poetry and Opinions by Voice of the Homeless Award Winners page will be
either fully restored along with the rest of the site, or you will be
informed as to how you can use your affiliations and what you, yourself,
can do to help Tedrico's Page, the Homeless Power Union, the Global
Homeless Network, the American Homeless Society, the Wyoming Coalition
for the Homeless, and now 66 (and growing) other homeless advocacy
supporters, launch a full "BOYCOTT XOOM.com" campaign which will be
promoted to full effectiveness by myself and 5 other webmaster
collaborators which have designed what I estimate to be %27 of their
2,534,940 member pages. Although I grow tired of waiting for them to
produce a real reason as to why they deleted Tedrico's Page and who
knows ... they may even take another 5 days, accompanied with legal
counseling to respond with the true reason for their scandolous actions
... still, let's all HOPE that XOOM does the right thing and re-instate
Tedrico's Page so that Voice of the Homeless Awards may continue to be
issued out to those who exemplify the qualities and actions possessed by
TRUE HOMELESS ADVOCATES, like yoursleves. Thank you and stay tuned!
Regards,
Tedrico Latham
_________________________
TEDRICO'S PAGE
http://members.xoom.com/tedrico/?homelessness
Your Informative Homelessness Resource Link!
P.O. Box 514 Rich Square, NC 27869 (252)539-4228
<tedrico@hotmail.com>
---- Tedrico's Response to Xoom Webmaster -----
Bruce,
This response is BS .. and I don't mean Bachelor of Science either.
"Shouldn't I have had the right to speak on behalf of my own defense and
perhaps .. try to resolve this matter through negotiation with you or
whomever made the initial complaint before you had my site purged from
your server?" Also, HOW could you bring yourself to write this letter,
which is basically a "Blow-Off" and does not answer NOT ONE of the many
questions put to you by both me and loads of concerned advocates of
homelessness and people who are still on the streets, RIGHT NOW, even as
I reply to this play on words you call a REASON for you actions. And
just think, that after waiting 5 days and probably consulting with your
legal people, this is the best reason you could come up with, to explain
your motive for deleting Tedrico's Page: Homelessness, Hitchhiking,
Panhandling, and Homeless Programs.
I find it amazing, that you were even able to climb the executive
business ladder to the position of CEO, every time I read this poor
excuse for a response letter to an overwhelming amount of e-mails from
those whom your heartless and thoughtless actions have angered, and may
I add ... to the point of PROTESTING & BOYCOTTING of your services and
products. I'm not your ordinary HTML programmer which I'm sure you've
already figured out, and even if you haven't, someone on your staff has,
which would explain why they allowed me to receive the following message
to Joey on your abuse team:
Reply-To: "Abuse@Xoom.com" <abuse@xoom.com>
From: "Abuse@Xoom.com" <abuse@xoom.com>
To: "Theodore Latham" <tedrico@hotmail.com>
Subject: Re: Found something WEIRD in my Server Log!
Date: Fri, 31 Jul 1998 09:44:58 +0100
Uhhh! Joey check this out! Is it cool for one of our members to be
able to do this? Also this situation is getting out of hand. One
guy threatens lawsuit to have this site removed will now he is getting
pissed and knows he has been removed.
And my lawyer tells me that your staff member has agreed to give
their full cooperation on this matter so long as they can retain their
anonymous identity and be exonerated from what both my lawyer and I have
in store for XOOM. Tell me Bruce, have you ever seen "Mutiny on the
Bounty". I curious, because surely now, you must be wondering who on
your XOOM abuse staff has strayed away from their vow of allegiance to
you and the XOOM organization on a whole. Are they "somewhere deep down
inside" an advocate of helping the homeless. You'll never know!! But, in
my opinion, this staff member should be given a Pulitzer prize for
leaving the back door open to your server's administative area that
night, so that it was easy for me to find out what reason you used, when
filling out the LOCKOUT FORM located at:
http://master.xoom.com/Actions/lockouts/
... you know the one I speak of, which includes the reasons for
your lockout actions, 2 of which in my opinion, I believe to be an
example of an ISP having too much power over it's members sites and
UNETHICAL ABUSE OF AUTHORITY! Here are the 2 I'm referring to:
User is an Asshole
Simpy Disliked the User
But NO! .. You didn't choose either of these reasons to purge
Tedrico's Page from your server .. but .. instead, the one you did
choose ... "MP3" , which I made sure that many of my e-mailed supporters
were able to see before you closed the back door server administration
loophole left by your staff member, clearly denotes that you randomly
selected this reason to purge my site, probably just so you'd have a log
record on your books to show a reason why for any future inquiry
requests. Well when I see you in court, you'll have to show this record,
and you know you can't change what was previously there to something
else, because the entry time will be logged for a day and time other
than Thursday evening when you initially filled the form out and issued
the purge request. Need I remind you again:
>host048.xoom.com - - [30/Jul/1998:18:01:45 +0000] "GET / HTTP/1.0" 200
>54 "http://logger.xoom.com/viewer/tedrico" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible;
>MSIE 4.0; Windows NT)"
>
>host048.xoom.com - - [30/Jul/1998:18:01:48 +0000] "GET / HTTP/1.0" 200
>54 "JavaScriptTurnedOff" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 4.0; Windows
>NT)"
>
>host048.xoom.com - - [30/Jul/1998:18:03:10 +0000] "GET /index.html
>HTTP/1.0" 200 54
"http://master.xoom.com/Actions/lockouts/x-ray/tedrico"
>"Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 4.0; Windows NT)"
We all know that MP3's are 3 layered .Mpeg format movies and true
enough, had I had one or more of these on my site, then I'd be guilty of
violating your Terms of Agreement and copyright infringemnets as well.
But, I did NOT have an MP3 on my site because I know, as a professional
designer & promoter of websites, that MP3's require special players that
the majority of the netizens on the WWW don't readily have installed on
their computer platforms, and thus it would pose an overall operating
system compatibility problem for viewers of the web page that it resides
on.
So, with all of this said, I ask you once more ..... WHY was
Tedrico's Page abruptly and wrongfully purged from not only YOUR server
and CYBERSPACE, but also from the rather LARGE online homeless support
system that many currently homeless, formerly homeless, marginally
homed, and homeless advocates have relied on as a top source for contact
information and educational support. This is no longer just a mere
problem between the ISP and the Client, but a political issue and I know
my supporters won't stop until (1) you've consulted with me to RESOLVE
the trademark dispute, if there actually was one in the first place ,
(2) my site has been restored under its original URL, and (3) a letter
of apology has been sent to ME. And I won't take this lightly either. In
fact, if I don't get a REAL answer from you next time, you will force me
to sue the pants off of XOOM, and promote the LARGEST online campaign
against your 4th ranked ISP in the history of the internet. And I assure
you, that I am a PROFESSIONAL promoter of websites. You obviously have
no idea what it's like for ACTIVISTS to be on your back! All I can say
further is ... the ball in in your court and the question here is ...
"Will my promotion efforts be for you ... or AGAINST YOU"!
Regards,
Tedrico Latham
_________________________
TEDRICO'S PAGE
http://members.xoom.com/tedrico/?homelessness
Your Informative Homelessness Resource Link!
P.O. Box 514 Rich Square, NC 27869 (252)539-4228
<tedrico@hotmail.com>
---------- Xoom Webmaster Response ----------
Subject: re: members.xoom.com/tedrico
Date: Tue, 4 Aug 1998 19:29:49 -0800
From: WebMaster <webmaster@xoom.com>
To: <tedrico@hotmail.com>
Mr Latham's site was removed because he violated our Terms of Service
agreement.
Many of you have speculated as to what the cause was, and others have
made assumptions (including Mr. Latham)... none of which were correct.
It should be hard to draw such conclusions when you don't have all the
information (and legally, I'm not allowed to give it to you... much to
my chagrin.)
While I admire the work that many of you are involved with, I must say
that I'm quite shocked at the attitude, threats and demands that many of
you conveyed to me and to Xoom.
And to those of you who took a calmer, more inquisitive tone, thank you.
This was a legal issue, pure and simple.
We received a very pointed and direct complaint about a trademark
violation, and to keep both Xoom AND Ted Latham out of any possible
legal conundrum, we removed the site.
We only provide notice of removal under specific conditions, and the
threat of legal action due to trademark violation is not one of those
conditions.
We're pretty clear about such violations in our Terms of Service
agreement, for precisely this reason.
While Xoom is very happy to host sites with such noble goals, we cannot
and will not allow such violations.
thank your for your attention,
Bruce
Xoom Webmaster
______________________________________________________
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