As some followers of this thread surely recall, I got into a brouhaha a year ago over a certain "Pluvia" who was fraudulently posting twisted information about PLSIA at SI in the guise of being an investor when in fact, as we discovered upon investigation, he turned out to be a distributor of a competitive product. He was orchestrating a campaign to dissuade dentists from purchasing the PLSIA product by threatening that they might be in violation of patent laws were they to do so.
Pretty scummy. There remains a residue of anger over the fact that I challenged the anonymity of a fraudulent poster. Svejk, a pseudonym, is among a group engaged in a concerted effort to discredit me and my business. It's pretty meaningless but I do believe it is appropriate that we set the record straight as to WHAT WE DO AT wbn.com, why we do it, and why anonymous posters such as Pluvia need to be unveiled to determine their motives.
The following email was received and responded to Saturday,
October 17, 1998. It would seem that our response answers many
questions readers might have about wbn.com and is reprinted herewith in its entirety:
Mr. Westergaard: I recently mentioned on the Silicon Investor thread
that you were profiling Planet City (PINC). One guy who is always
critical of Planet City took a few shots at you as well. I responded
that the U.S. Senate disagrees with him, since they asked you to
come and speak re:Y2K --- Do you have a BIO, or brag sheet that I
could present to defend you? P.S. It was post #660 on the SI PINC
thread.
Sir: I have been engaged for 40 years in publishing investment
research on speculative stocks and no one has ever sued me or
questioned my integrity, nor have I ever had a regulatory problem.
My full bio is at www.wbn.com. Thanks for the heads up. My first
response is to note that I consider there to be no greater tribute
than to be known by the enemies I make.
The background of this hostility on Silicon Investor has to do
with the fact that my company, Westergaard Online Systems, Inc.,
through its publishing channel, Westergaard Broadcasting
Network.com <http://www.wbn.com> is engaged in a business, the
purpose of which is to help protect companies and their
shareholders from anonymous posters engaged in posting
purposefully misleading or fraudulent misinformation at Silicon
Investor and other message boards.
This is a service for which we charge corporations as is clearly
spelled out at wbn.com under "Disclaimer" and "About wbn.com"
and elsewhere on the site as well. The reason we charge for the
service is to pay the salaries of analysts, staff, other expenses,
advertising (to begin January), and make a profit projected at 20%
pretax.
Persons who post misinformed, misleading, fraudulent, or just
plain stupid information on message boards find wbn.com to pose
a threat, and I can't say I blame them. Consider the following:
PERSPECTIVE: I began my professional life as an analyst in the
late '50s at Standard & Poor's Corporation. S&P published then a
subscriber based debt rating service run by Dominic DiPalma and
two assistants. It was a marginal business.
One day Goldman Sachs suggested that there was a need for a
service to rate commercial paper, a fast growing newly emerging
debt market where GS was the leader but other firms were coming
into the business selling garbage paper and the market wasn't
distinguishing between the good and the bad. GS suggested that
issuers of such paper would pay a fee to have it rated by S&P (and
Moody's) and a service to do so was established.
Problem was, nobody came. Why would corporations put
themselves at the mercy of S&P or Moody's when they could sell
their paper in any event?
Fine, until one day an event occurred...... the Penn Central went
bankrupt. The commercial paper market disappeared overnight.
The next morning the CFOs of dozens of commercial paper issuers
were lined up on the sidewalk at 345 Hudson Street with checks in
hand.
Today, Dominic's once three man department has grown to 1200
worldwide servicing corporations prepared to pay a fee to have
their debt rated by S&P and Moody's whose approval they need to
market debt obligations.
Hmmm. So much for those who say "sponsored research" will
never be perceived as credible.
PLUVIA: In August '97 WBN was beta testing a concept --
subsequently evolved as the WBNcyberStation(TM) -- designed to
assist corporations in defining themselves to Internet investors
and protecting them from anonymous attack. Premier Laser
Systems (PLSAE) was one of the beta sites and a third party -- not
management but someone with an interest -- challenged us to see if
we could uncover the true name of an anonymous poster going
under the name PLUVIA who was posting purposefully twisted
information hostile to PLSAE.
We posted a $5,000 reward -- our own money -- for information
leading to the identification of the poster and found out thereby
who he was, that he lived in Las Vegas, and that he was a
distributor of a product competive with PLSAE's teeth whitening
laser. He was posting fraudulently in the guise of being an
investor when his interests were quite something else.
Upon our uncovering him, PLSAE proceeded to have counsel issue
a Cease and Desist letter and he appears to have pretty much gone
from the scene. Among his various statements was to question
PLSAE's patent position which was subsequently authenticated. He
was actually calling up dentists and telling them that if they
purchased PLSAE's equipment they could be sued for patent
infringement. Nasty stuff.
THE BOARDS GO CRAZY: You have no idea how nuts these Silicon
Investor posters went. They called me a nazi, posted pictures of
me in SS uniform, claimed I was violating Pluvia's right of
privacy (I never revealed his true name and note in return, "To
claim violation of the right of privacy of a 'nom de plume' is an
oxymoron.") A newly formed SI thread, Pluvia vs Westergaard.
received 1200+ postings in six weeks, 95% hostile to me.
It's not surprising that these jokers are angry. If one gets one's
jollies from posting the crap most of these people put up at SI
and other boards, one would of course be upset by the threat a
wbn.com poses.
WBN IS BREAKING NEW GROUND: Five years from now there will
be half a dozen third party research firms such as ourselves
engaged in assisting public companies to maintain control of
their "corporate personae" on the Internet. Shareholders will
insist they do so. Public companies cannot afford to let
themselves be hung out to dry by hostile parties, be they
short sellers, ex employees, ex wives, competitors, or
promoters manipulating their shares, whether it be up or down.
To deal with this problem is what wbn.com is about. For the
business to be successful we will need to have investors believe
we are honest, responsible and qualified. Establishing our
credibility will be a gradual, inevitable process.
P.S. I see "Svejk" has posted #665. I respond as follows:
1. The Motley Fool crowd attacked me for uncovering Pluvia's true
intent for the same reasons as did the Silicon Investor crowd. Same
problem: WBN represents a challenge to their presumed right to
publish at will misinformation, fraudulent information, and
smears.
2. Stock Detective is simply mistaken. They criticize us for
providing only "blanket" disclosure in defining our relationship
to cyberstation licensees. Anyone visiting www.wbn.com will
readily see that it is not true. We have had correspondence with
Stock Detective and I would expect them to remove that
Designation simply because it is palpably not the case. In a letter to
me from Kevin Lichtman, publisher and editor of Stock Detective,
dated Sunday, October 11th, he wrote:
"While you may endeavor to abide by ethical and lawful practices
at all times, some of your clients surely do not. What you can do,
in our opinion, is to make your disclosure as detailed and as
visible as possible and be selective with regards to which
companies you represent.
"Having said all that, I'd like to tell you that I believe your
reputation is superior to that of most of your peers in the small
company public relations industry. I've never known of any
instance where your name or that of your company has been
associated with hype or other unethical promotions. It's too bad
more firms in your industry can't follow your example."
Hmmm..... Svejk? Svejk? Are you listening? You know, Svejk, I
ought to get you together with my friend Horace Flashman, great
grandson of Sir Harry Flashman of the 17th Lancers and
famed for having led the charge of the light brigade among
other heroic exploits of Victorian England as profiled by by
George MacDonald Fraser in a series of volumes. Svejk, you surely
recall Flashman as the schoolyard bully from John Brown's
School Days!!! You know the type, full of bluster but coward
underneath.
3. As for the statement at WBN Silver Edition that Planet City has
no competition, that one got by me and will be corrected.
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