Steve,
I am posting Tokyo joes reply just to add balance.
If this guy could already move a stock before, just imagine
how much more now after the publicity.
Subj: We Demand a Retraction or Correction
Date: 8/22/99 12:18:58 AM Eastern Daylight Time
August 21, 1999
The New York Times
229 West 43rd Street
New York, New York 10036
Re: "Internet Chat Rooms Send Stock Prices on a Wild Ride."
Dear Sirs/Madams:
I am the Chief Executive Officer of Tokyo Joe's Societe Anonyme. I am also an attorney licensed to practice law in, inter
alia, the State of New York.
I write in reference to the referenced article that appeared on Page A1 and in the internet edition of your August 21, 1999
paper. I have copied it below from your web site for your convenience.
We dispute several key "facts" alleged in the article. Now, to clarify our concern, I will first provide a bit of background.
Briefly, our organization at tokyojoe.com runs a real-time Premium Chat room on Internet Relay Chat (not on
the web site). Our subscribers are free to post news alerts and updates during the trading day. Our chat room, like
virtually every other such room (there are many), encourage our members to keep us informed of credible and verifiable
news and rumors that they see elsewhere.
The first obvious falsity in the article concerns a "fake press release." On Friday, August 20, our member tiny - the "tiny"
mentioned in the article - did what he was supposed to do. He saw a news item on a reputable investment web site,
briefing.com, and posted it in the chat room for our benefit. Nothing nefarious was going on, despite the clear
insinuation of such by your reporter.
The link and text of the news item that member tiny saw:
briefing.com
12:42 ET Information Management Associates (IMAA) 12 3/16 +3 11/16 (+43%): Stock continues to trend higher in
anticipation of spin-off of its reverse auction unit Buyingedge.com, which is a competitor to Priceline.com (PCLN).
Company recently received investment from Internet venture fund CMGI Inc (CMGI). Volume an extremely heavy 6 mln
shares. Stock trading at new 52-week high.
and here is member tiny's post in the Premium Chat room:
12:42 ET Information Management Associates (IMAA) 12 3/16 +3 11/16 (+43%): Stock continues to trend higher in
anticipation of spin-off of its reverse auction unit Buyingedge.com, which is a competitor to Priceline.com (PCLN).
Company recently received investment from Internet venture fund CMGI Inc (CMGI). Volume an extremely heavy 6 mln
shares. Stock trading at new 52-week high.
Now, a couple of things are significant here: 1) tiny posted exactly what he saw on another reputable web site, and had no
reason to think it was inaccurate or erroneous, and clearly was NOT making anything up; and 2) tiny's post was most
definitely NOT a "fake press release" as stated in the following erroneous sentence from the article:
"On Thursday, a subscriber named Tiny posted a fake press release that said IMA. was going to spin off buyingedge.com,
the Internet shopping site."
This is a cut-and-dried case of a false statement being made to further an unfounded and malicious attack on our
organization.
Another objectionable false statement is the following sentence about a routine server crash:
"Losing the connection was highly unusual, and some traders suspect foul play."
This statement is absurd. Server crashes on Internet Relay Chat are fairly common, particularly on the network our chat
room uses, and particularly recently due to our recent implementation of a dedicated chat server for our organization. We
informed our members our switch to the new server, and have had several problems recently. There was nothing "highly
unusual" about a temporary server problem at all, unless you consider things like rainstorms or cloudy days "highly
unusual." I doubt any reasonable person who actually knew the facts would find your reporter's conclusion reasonable.
This is simply another false statement, perhaps made out of sheer ignorance, but maliciously calculated to create a false
impression of nefarious activity in your worldwide audience. What ever happened to journalistic ethics and fact-checking?
The facts I produce here are all easily documented. I urge your organization to verify them, as it should have done in the
first place. The truly astonishing feature here is that your reporter apparently never attempted to verify anything. Given
these demonstrable falsities, we have to question other "facts" in the piece, such as whether the un-named people quoted
in the piece (who just happened to further the reporter's apparently malicious agenda) actually existed.
We demand a retraction or correction. The article was a disgrace, though with some admittedly titillating fictional touches.
Very Truly Yours,
James Bjorkman, Esq.
CEO, Tokyo Joe's Societe Anonyme
New York, New York
Prices shown reflect either actual buys or market price at time of call. |
