Boycott Ellis Island Website
http://www.ellisislandrecords.org/
Many of you are familiar with the Ellis Island records website but you
may
not be familiar with Steve Morse. Steve created a front end or gateway
to
make it much easier to search the Ellis Island records site. He had this
gateway up at:
http://home.pacbell.net/spmorse/ellis/ellis.html .
He offered many other parameters to search the Ellis Island site and it
was
remarkably user friendly in it's ease of use and search options. In fact
it
is the front end that Ellis Island records should have offered to begin
with. Steve did a remarkable job and it's my opinion that he should have
been hired by them rather than be threatened by them since he obviously
has
a much better grasp of what is actually needed than the people that
designed
the site.
Ellis Island records org. has decided that Steve Morse is in violation
of
their terms of use and has notified him of such. He feels that it is not
in
violation but has taken the website down because he does not have the
resources to fight them. If they feel this is cutting into their
revenue,
why not just ask Steve to put up a banner on his site encouraging
donations
or membership to the Ellis Island org.?
I am including two letters here that can be copied and pasted and sent
to
(1) the Ellis Island records org and (2) to the sponsors of the Ellis
Island
site requesting that they change their position on the terms of use and
Steve Morse's site and that they restore 'right click' functionality to
the
Ellis Island records website.
=============================
Letter to the Ellis Island Records Org. and
the National Park Service
note * please copy and paste this letter to a new email and send one
copy
to:
historycenter(a)ellisisland.org and one to the National Park Service at:
stli_info(a)nps.gov
---------------------------------------------
To whom it may concern,
This is to inform you that I will be boycotting your website at:
http://www.ellisislandrecords.org/ and will encourage all my friends and
other genealogy groups to do the same until you change your position and
allow Steve Morse's website at:
http://home.pacbell.net/spmorse/ellis/ellis.html to operate. I don't
believe
he is in violation of your terms of use and I feel the public would be
better served if he were hired by you to provide a search engine rather
than
being threatened by you.
I am also requesting that you restore 'right click' functionality to
your
website.
I will no longer donate to your organization, join your service or
purchase
products you offer.
I am also notifying the sponsors listed on your website that I will be
boycotting their products and services until this situation is resolved.
Shame on you. This isn't how Ellis Island, the National Park Service or
the
memories of our ancestors should be represented.
Sincerely Disappointed
(your sig and email addy)
-------------------------
===============================
===============================
Letter to the sponsors listed on the Ellis Island site. email addresses
included at end of message.
-----------------------------------------------
To whom it may concern,
You are currently a sponsor listed on the Ellis Island Records website
at:
http://www.ellisislandrecords.org/ and this email is to inform you that
I
will be boycotting your products or services and urging my friends to do
so
also.
This is in response to Ellis Island Records Org. decision to notify
Steve
Morse (
http://home.pacbell.net/spmorse/ellis/ellis.html ) that his
website
is in violation of their terms of use.
I feel Steve Morse was not in violation of the terms of use and provided
a
service that Ellis Island org should have provided themselves.
It is also in response to their decision to disable 'right click'
functionality on their website.
Until these issues are resolved and you remain a sponsor, I will no
longer
purchase your products, use any services you offer or visit your
website.
I am sincerely disappointed in the actions of the Ellis Island Records
organization and am sorry it needs to reflect upon your company in such
a
negative manner.
(your sig and email addy)
--------------------------
note * please copy and paste this letter to a new email and send one
copy to
each of the sponsors listed below, I am sure some of these addresses
wrapped, both lines are one single address.
Compaq:
CustomerRelations(a)compaq.com
Genealogy.com must be contacted on their website at:
http://genealogy.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/genealogy.cfg/php/enduser/ask.php
Kodak must be contacted online at:
http://www.kodak.com/cgi-bin/global/en/service/contact/feedback.cgi?conf
=/gl
obal/include/en/service/contact/contact.conf
Discover Card has no email address, you need to send the message from
their
website at:
https://customerservice.novusnet.com/EMS/html/usemsform.html
Oracle must be contacted online:
http://www.oracle.com/corporate/contact/index.html?webmaster.html
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