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Microcap & Penny Stocks : Veronex Technologies Inc. (VXTK) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: DD™ who wrote (484)	1/22/1999 10:42:00 AM
From: wallstreetreporter	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 684

Veronex did NOT pay Wall Street Reporter or Stock-Line for the interview. we apologize, that diclosure was linked accidently during web maintenance. Companies do NOT PAY to be interviewed on the website. the RealAudio interviews are done based on corporate news and earnings announcements. the (free) RealAudion interview stays on the site for approximately one week. Many companies want to make those interviews available in RealAudio and also TEXT format (which makes the interview more easily accessible and useful to investors), as part of this program we also provide the company with hardcopy reprints. Additionally the interview is re-published in Wall Street Reporter Magazine which is distributed to institutional investors, and at investor conferences like the Money Show (Orlando, Feb 3-6 8,000 attendees expected). At the time we do the interview we DONT know if a company will buy a media program, and we DONT CARE if that company buys a program. The Companies who have bought programs are extremely happy with the results they get from being in our Magazine, and keeping their interview on our site for one year in text and audio. This provides them with a very effective way to communicate their message to investors (like yourself). If you listen/read our interviews you will find they are better than anything on CNBC. We ask questions that sophisticated investors want answered. We ask objective questions. we do not come to the interview with an axe to grind - these are not your typical CNBC fluff or biased hardball interviews. What we do is no different from what MSNBC Business Video (or whatever they are called nowadays) does. They do Audio interviews much like ours and THEY CHARGE companies a fee to maintain the Audio and text on their site. They DONT DISCLOSE what fees they receive because the SEC would not dare to go after them. The SEC investigation/lawsuit was designed to make a big splash in the media to demonstrate that the SEC can control fraud on the net. They used a very obscure rule in the 1933 act called 17B which states that "anyone giving publicity to a public company must disclose EXACTLY what they receive in compensation". By enforcing this rule the SEC can (and should have) gone after virtually EVERY Financial publication. look at this month's issue of Individual Investor - there is a promotional ad for a canadian enviornmental stock - it does not say how much Individual Investor was paid. This is just one example. The SEC and most government agencies like to practice "selective enforcement" - pick on the little guy who does not have the time or money to fight an endless court battle. The SEC knows that if they went after the financial media establishment they would get their ass kicked. Rule 17B is ridiculous. We have ALWAYS stated that we received a FEE for anything done for a public company. We believe in Disclosure. Establishment publications like Institutional Investor, Forbes, Business Week, etc. never discloses anything in their "Sponsored Features" The SEC's case against us centered around disclosure we made regarding several clients that came on board during during the summer of 1998. These Clients were brought in by an investor relations executive that joined stock-line's parent company. These clients needed comprehensive multi-month IR sevices (fow which any major PR company would charge HUNDREDS of THOUSANDS$) which they paid for in stock, cash and options. Unfortunately because of tremendous growth in our business during the summer and alot of transition in our internet production department we did not update the disclaimer on our website. this was an honest mistake - not some scheme to defraud the investing public. we are a fast growing media company with the financial media component as just one aspect of our business that has gone from a one man operation to 14 full time employees in less than 2 years with no outside investment. as some of you who are involved with rapidly growing companies , and internet companies in particular, know that technical mistakes like these are made on a daily basis. What we resented the most was being lumped in with 40 "touts". Some of those named in that investigation were TRULY bad guys. not just bad but outright scam artists. Many, however were guys who always disclosed that they got a fee to "promote" a company. We would have gone to court to fight the SEC's charges and we would have probably won this case after several years and several hundred thousand dollars. we found it more practical given our financial circumstances to settle and pay a fine.

To: DD™ who wrote (484)	1/22/1999 6:44:00 PM
From: David A. Hite	Respond to of 684

DD: Your claim as to Stock-Line.com making any paid statements on behalf on Veronex is not true. Veronex has not paid Stock-Line.com for any services. Veronex has not paid Jack Marks nor has it paid Starwood Media Group any money. Veronex does pay various firms to advertise its products and make the public aware of the Company and its software, I believe this is called advertising. All companies advertise. Next time you read a research report from a major wall street firm, check out the fine print and you will see that most of the time, the companies pay an "investment banking fee" or some sort of consulting fee to the research firm that issues the report. The payment of money and/or stock warrants for investment advice by public companies is a common business practice. The issue at the SEC with Stock-Line was disclosure of the fees, not the research report or what was printed. DD, what is your agenda? You have been focused on publishing negative info on Veronex since your first posts. You need to state your name and location to provide full disclosure. Are you being paid to make negative statements about Veronex? The SEC took action against Stock-Line for failure to disclose a financial interest in the companies about which it posted information. If you have a financial interest in Veronex going down (call short position) then you have exactly the same disclosure situation as Stock-Line. Disclose! David Hite