Comments

• Doug Heller

  2009-05-04 17:47:05

  Please see http://www.consumerwatchdog.org for our 20+year record. As you will see, our consumer advocacy work has saved consumers over $60 billion on auto insurance alone. We've also won patient rights laws and fought electricity deregulation and attempts to bail out utilities with ratepayer money.
  
  As for Grassroots Enterprise, that company is our website host. We pay them for their server space and to use their webpage templates in order to build our site. We are no more "affiliated with/derived from" them than we are with our telephone service provider Verizon or Apple Computer, which sold us some iMacs.

• Roy Schestowitz

  2009-05-04 19:10:12

  Hi,
  
  

  Please see http://www.consumerwatchdog.org for our 20+year record. As you will see, our consumer advocacy work has saved consumers over $60 billion on auto insurance alone. We’ve also won patient rights laws and fought electricity deregulation and attempts to bail out utilities with ratepayer money.

  
  
  This does not address the subject of this post however. I also hear about ACT "helping small businesses, yadda yadda..."
  
  

  As for Grassroots Enterprise, that company is our website host. We pay them for their server space and to use their webpage templates in order to build our site. We are no more “affiliated with/derived from” them than we are with our telephone service provider Verizon or Apple Computer, which sold us some iMacs.

  
  
  I was unable to find a products/services page in Grassroots.com, but this one seems like the equivalent section:
  
  http://www.grassroots.com/what/
  
  Are they also doing hosting? I can't find any information about that. How many companies do they provide hosting for? Where can one sign up?

• Shane Coyle

  2009-05-04 20:14:04

  Firstly, as always, thank you to Mr Heller for stopping by and contributing to the discussion. Clarifications are always welcome.
  
  I just checked out that grassroots.com/what link and I can't help but feel like I need a shower, I'm just not sure they make water hot enough to make me feel clean again.
  
  

  ... # Engaging them over time via a variety of online communication techniques, including, of course, email (***this is the step most people leave out, but it's the most critical) # Monitor the online universe -- news sites, blogs, the social media, etc. -- to figure out how our client or its issues are being perceived, and actively shape that perception. # Create and execute online programs that drive stakeholders to join our client's campaign (through paid advertising, buzz building, viral marketing and earned media) # Work with our 50-state field network to find "grasstops" influentials -- individuals with unique relationships in key markets that we can leverage # Build in-depth behavioral profile of each stakeholder, and identify mavens (or Multipliers) in the mix # Spur stakeholders to take action we want, measure results in real real-time, and adjust the campaign as necessary ...

  
  
  Perhaps a new name is in order for grassroots.com, since Astroturf hasn't any roots that I'm aware of.

• Roy Schestowitz

  2009-05-04 21:12:23

  When someone pays you to just attack something you don't even care about, then it's even worse than AstroTurfing. The non-technical term is "attack dog", I suspect.

• Doug Heller

  2009-05-04 19:56:44

  As you will see from the reporting on our battle with Google, it is funded with a grant from the privacy rights oriented Rose Foundation, based in California. At one point, Google contacted that charitable foundation trying to defund us. Here’s more on that from Congressional Quarterly: http://www.consumerwatchdog.org/corporateering/articles/?storyId=25070 and a detailed rundown from my colleague: http://www.consumerwatchdog.org/corporateering/articles/?storyId=25152

• Roy Schestowitz

  2009-05-04 20:07:20

  As you will see from the reporting on our battle with Google, it is funded with a grant from the privacy rights oriented Rose Foundation, based in California.

  
  
  So it's true that you are basically hired as a gun against Google. What's in it for them?
  
  I notice that you also avoid my questions, which seems like a diversion tactic.

• Eruaran

  2009-05-05 15:32:36

  Sorry Doug, but your website is so outrageously biased that it is impossible to take you seriously. I find it extraordinary that an alleged "consumer watchdog" has so much time for attacking Google that a search for "Microsoft" on your website delivers up *not* articles that might in any way at all relate to Microsoft's ongoing harms to competitors and consumers alike, but rather it delivers up a veritable catwalk of articles which attack Google.
  
  Even some of the most notorious Microsoft boosting sellouts can to a better job at the appearance of impartiality.
  
  And Grassroots Enterprise is not something that any reputable consumer watchdog group would want their name in any way associated with, purely for the sake of credibility.
  
  As someone who works in this industry daily and all too frequently sees and experiences the fruits of Microsoft's anticompetitive activities I for one have no time for diplomacy with people like you who so mendaciously ignore the biggest elephant in the room.

• Roy Schestowitz

  2009-05-05 16:57:46

  This elephant is getting less big today.