Allen & Caron? If Netcurrents is watching us who is watching netcurrents?
For years, Westergaard also has organized investor conferences at New York's Waldorf Astoria hotel. Companies that participate pay Westergaard's firm up to $8,000 for the right to appear. There's considerable overlap between the more than 200 companies that have appeared at these conferences in the last 20 years and the firms highlighted in Westergaard's publications. On the advice of its PR firm Allen & Caron, Premier has appeared at several Westergaard conferences and will be present at the September 4 conference that will launch the WIBN.
The WIBN is essentially a collection of websites, each of which is leased to a public company but owned and ultimately managed by Westergaard. This arrangement, he has said, allows Westergaard to take full responsibility for the content. Appearing to be sites offering an objective presentation of information aggregated from various online sources, these "cyber-stations" will actually offer companies a chance to control their persona by filtering this information, if necessary. Participating companies, such as Premier, are known as "member affiliates," and they pay Westergaard Online $30,000 for the service.
For that sum, Westergaard provides an analyst to compose research reports on the company; $10,000 worth of advertising, either on the Internet or in small ads in Investor's Business Daily; and a service he calls the WBN Cyberpatrol that will sweep a company's stock boards looking for posters spreading "misinformation." As Pluvia says, "This looks like pure paid PR, money that comes from the company to him to make it appear as though it's an independent firm giving them recommendations."
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