COHR Inc. Announces Investigation Results Regarding YAHOO
CHATSWORTH, Calif., Nov. 4 /PRNewswire/ -- Many companies recently have
experienced the problem of disruptive and defamatory "attack" messages being
posted anonymously on the Internet. In response to a particularly virulent
strain of such anonymous attacks on the Yahoo! message board regarding COHR
Inc., the Company recently launched an investigation.
The ongoing investigation by COHR uncovered facts leading it to believe that
numerous anonymous Internet messages on the Yahoo! message board, which
disparage COHR and its personnel, are linked to Sandy Morford. Morford was
the Chief Operating Officer of COHR until June 2, 1998, and he now serves as
the President of a competitor, Genesis Technology Partners, a subsidiary of
Cassling Diagnostic Imaging (Omaha, NE).
Background:
Although the Yahoo! message board has become a place for malicious mudslinging
and falsehoods apparently designed to harm COHR, the Company has not responded
to the many untruths, innuendoes, disparagements and misrepresentations posted
there. However, it came to COHR's attention recently that a particularly
deceptive form of communication has occurred. In August 1998, messages were
posted that misrepresent the author(s) to be an officer and a director of the
Company. As a result, COHR initiated an investigation that is now in progress
regarding the source of various false and malicious postings on Yahoo!
Investigation
Certain pertinent facts developed by COHR's investigation to date are as
follows:
1. Yahoo! business records, produced to COHR in response to a subpoena, show
that the Yahoo! User IDs:
"Eastern Employee"
"Cohr Insider"
"COHR SHAREHOLDER"
"HCSC 1"
"BMET999"
are alternative identities for the same Yahoo! account. In other words,
notwithstanding the very different public "profiles" given for these names, in
reality they are apparently the same person. (Readers of the Yahoo! message
board will find it interesting to re-read the above messages with this in
mind.)
This account was set up on August 12, 1998, and for the period August 12
through September 15, 1998, this person posted at least 43 messages, a
remarkable percentage of the disparaging messages regarding COHR. COHR does
not know at present whether the same person, or affiliated people, were also
posting additional messages through other Yahoo! accounts.
2. Yahoo! records show that the e-mail address that was provided by the person
setting up the account that uses these IDs is "smorford@ix.netcom.com."
3. COHR confirmed, through sworn testimony and a collection of various e-mail
messages, that "smorford@ix.netcom.com" is the e-mail address of Sandy
Morford.
4. COHR was informed by Yahoo! that when a new user account is opened, it is
Yahoo!'s ordinary business practice to automatically send a confirming e-mail
to the address provided by that user. COHR confirmed that this appears to be
the practice. This suggests that an e-mail confirming the creation of the
above-mentioned Yahoo! account was sent to Sandy Morford.
5. The "Registration IP address" for whomever originated the above-mentioned
Yahoo! account is a Netcom Internet address. (This information is not
voluntarily provided by the user, but rather was captured automatically by the
computer.) Thus, whoever opened this account, in fact entered Yahoo! through
Netcom. Coincidentally, Mr. Morford is among the approximately 3% of Internet
users whose ISP is Netcom.
6. At a recent deposition, Sandy Morford denied under oath any involvement in
the posting of messages under any of the above names. Morford also denied
ever receiving any e-mail from Yahoo!
Future Action:
It has been the practice of COHR to refrain from participating in the
comments and opinions posted to Yahoo!'s message board regarding COHR. COHR
does not plan in the future to discuss publicly any further deceptions of the
type described above, but felt it was appropriate to warn at this time that
such gross deceptions are taking place. In addition, COHR will not respond
publicly to the substance of the referenced messages, or any other messages on
the Yahoo! board for that matter, regardless of how wildly inaccurate and
distasteful the statements in such messages may be.
COHR is currently evaluating potential legal remedies with respect to the
person(s) responsible for various anonymous and deceptive messages on the
Yahoo! message board.
SOURCE COHR Inc.
CO: COHR Inc.; Yahoo!
ST: California
IN: CPR MLM |
