ALIAS-AKA-L Archives

From:
Subject: [AKA] Ellis Island Website Boycott
Date: Mon, 02 Sep 2002 14:10:07 -0400

Hi!

The information below is being shared with the permission of Laura Johnson.

I don't know how many of you use the Ellis Island web site or Steve Morse's
excellent alternate page, but even if you don't use it, your help would be
appreciated in saving the Steve Morse site.

Thank you.

,
Patrice
List Admin.

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Date: Sun, 01 Sep 2002 09:38:45 -0500
From: Laura Johnson <>

Boycott Ellis Island Website
http://www.ellisislandrecords.org/

Many of you are familiar with the Ellis Island records website but you may
not be familiar with Steve Morse. Steve created a front end or gateway to
make it much easier to search the Ellis Island records site. He had this
gateway up at: http://home.pacbell.net/spmorse/ellis/ellis.html . He
offered many other parameters to search the Ellis Island site and it was
remarkably user friendly in it's ease of use and search options. In fact it
is the front end that Ellis Island records should have offered to begin
with. Steve did a remarkable job and it's my opinion that he should have
been hired by them rather than be threatened by them since he obviously has
a much better grasp of what is actually needed than the people that
designed the site.

Ellis Island records org. has decided that Steve Morse is in violation
of their terms of use and has notified him of such. He feels that it is
not in violation but has taken the website down because he does not have
the resources to fight them. If they feel this is cutting into their
revenue, why not just ask Steve to put up a banner on his site encouraging
donations or membership to the Ellis Island org.?

I am including two letters here that can be copied and pasted and sent to
(1) the Ellis Island records org and (2) to the sponsors of the Ellis
Island site requesting that they change their position on the terms of use
and Steve Morse's site.

=============================
Letter to the Ellis Island Records Org. and the National Park Service note
* please copy and paste this letter to a new email and send one copy to:



and one to the National Park Service at:



- -------------------------------------------
To whom it may concern:

This is to inform you that I will be boycotting your website
at: http://www.ellisislandrecords.org/ and will encourage all my friends and
other genealogy groups to do the same until you change your position and
allow Steve Morse's website at:
http://home.pacbell.net/spmorse/ellis/ellis.html to operate. I don't
believe he is in violation of your terms of use and I feel the public would
be better served if he were hired by you to provide a search engine rather
than being threatened by you.

I will no longer donate to your organization, join your service or purchase
products you offer. I am also notifying the sponsors listed on your
website that I will be boycotting their products and services until this
situation is resolved.

Shame on you. This isn't how Ellis Island, the National Park Service or the
memories of our ancestors should be represented.

Sincerely Disappointed
(your sig and email addy)
-------------------------
==============================================================


Letter to the sponsors listed on the Ellis Island site. email addresses
included at end of message.
- ---------------------------------------------
To whom it may concern:

You are currently a sponsor listed on the Ellis Island Records website
at: http://www.ellisislandrecords.org/ and this email is to inform you
that I will be boycotting your products or services and urging my friends
to do so also.

This is in response to Ellis Island Records Org. decision to notify Steve
Morse ( http://home.pacbell.net/spmorse/ellis/ellis.html ) that his website
is in violation of their terms of use. I feel Steve Morse was not in
violation of the terms of use and provided a service that Ellis Island org
should have provided themselves.

Until this issue is resolved and while you remain a sponsor, I will no
longer purchase your products, use any services you offer or visit your
website.

I am sincerely disappointed in the actions of the Ellis Island Records
organization and am sorry it needs to reflect upon your company in such a
negative manner.

(your sig and email addy)
--------------------------
note * please copy and paste this letter to a new email and send one copy
to each of the sponsors listed below, I am sure some of these addresses
wrapped, both lines are one single address.

Compaq:


Genealogy.com must be contacted on their website at:
http://genealogy.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/genealogy.cfg/php/enduser/ask.php

Kodak must be contacted online at:
http://www.kodak.com/cgi-bin/global/en/service/contact/feedback.cgi?conf=/global/include/en/service/contact/contact.conf

Discover Card has no email address, you need to send the message from their
website at:
https://customerservice.novusnet.com/EMS/html/usemsform.html

Oracle must be contacted online:
http://www.oracle.com/corporate/contact/index.html?webmaster.html

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