The following is posted here with permission. Unable to just forward
for some reason, so am cutting and pasting below for you information. I
went over and took a look see at what I could see, but can tell you no
more than the message below. Maybe some one can find out more and let
us know more about it. This was posted on the State Coordinator's
mailing list.
Belinda
Subject:
[STATE-COORD-L] Possible Genealogy SCAM
Resent-Date:
Thu, 31 Aug 2000 13:26:29 -0700
Resent-From:
STATE-COORD-L(a)rootsweb.com
Date:
Thu, 31 Aug 2000 13:30:15 -0700
From:
Joy Fisher <jfisher(a)ucla.edu>
Reply-To:
STATE-COORD-L(a)rootsweb.com
To:
STATE-COORD-L(a)rootsweb.com
Hi Everyone:
About 2 weeeks ago we received a complaint from an Archives submitter
that
her materials were found on a genealogy subscription service:
www.familydiscovery.com
The submitter was able to do a little digging and found that they
were
linking to her files housed on her server, but shrink-wrapped inside
a
frame so it appears to be THEIR work. About 10 days ago, to
investigate
this, I signed up with familydiscovery. To date, I have not received
a user
id or password to get inside. The registered owners of the web site
gave
bogus telephone numbers in their registration. One number goes to a
recorded message line; the other to a carpet company. Some of the
e-mail
addys on their web site bounce.
Standing on the outside and looking through the window, it appears
that
several folks' web sites have been prize-mined:
http://www.familydiscovery.com/whatsnew.htm
The Storey Co., IA and the Washington Co., PA stuff seem to come
from
USGenWeb sites. Some of the other IA and NC stuff seems to come from
non-USGW sites. None of the materials seem to be housed at either
rootsweb
or usgennet.
I would suggest we all add the Java applet to bust out of the
shrink-wrapping:
<SCRIPT LANGUAGE="JavaScript">
<!-- Hide script from old browsers
if (top.location !=self.location) {
top.location = self.location
}
// End hiding script from old browsers -->
</SCRIPT>
This needs to be inserted between <HTML> and <TITLE> on every web
page.
If you have text files on your web site, you will need to add a
little
shrink wrapping of your own:
Create a blank web page -- use the tags <PRE> </PRE> --- and
paste
your text file in between the <PRE> and the </PRE> -- and be sure to
add
the Java applet.
If anyone out there is or has been a member of familydiscovery -- or
has
been ripped off by them, I would like to hear from you.
Permission is granted to forward this message.