alt_religion_scientology/FACTNetARS20011221

From: "FACTNet International" < XXX-Obsolete.email.Deleted-XXX >

Newsgroups: alt.religion.scientology

Subject: Is Earthlink promoting the Church of Scientology in spite of its denials of involvement with the cult?

Message-ID: <4DVK7.48664$lV4.7624804@e420r-atl1.usenetserver.com>

NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 21 Nov 2001 17:10:08 EST

Date: Wed, 21 Nov 2001 14:21:31 -0800

Do actions speak louder than words? Are the assurances of Earthling

executives or Sky Dayton that the Scientology cult is not being promoted or

favored by Earthlink to be believed? Do Earthlink customers have the right

to know the truth about whether or not their monthly subscription fees are

going directly or indirectly to support a dangerous cult?

Factnet has recently disclosed that Scientology is now involved in a new

spamming censorship ploy in the search engines. (See our Overture [GoTo]

disclosure at http://www.factnet.org/letters/FACTNewsAugust2001.html ). In

our ongoing research regarding search engine manipulation we have just

discovered that at Earthlink Scientology appears to have a preferential

promotional arrangement that would have any reasonable person scratching

their head.

When one goes to http://www.earthlink.com for the purposes of doing an

Internet search one finds that the Search function is defaulted to

"Earthlink". (To search the Internet itself requires one to manually alter

the drop-down selection box so that "The Web" is selected.)

If one leaves the default selection to "Earthlink" and searches on the word

"scientology" the search engine presents the searcher with results only from

websites hosted by Earthlink. (i.e. with a URL starting as

http://home.earthlink.net/.etc.)

The interesting part is this:

1. the first 53 results are all pro-scientology. (See:

http://www.factnet.org/Scientology/EarthlinkScientologyBias.html )

2. the first 53 results all seem to be based on a common template (See:

http://www.lermanet.com/cos/webspamplan.htm ),

3. novice or naïve users of the internet are presented with heavily biased

results. Is this not a form of preferential treatment for Scientology and

censorship of opposing views to the benefit of the Scientology cult?

4. Sky Dayton (http://home.earthlink.net/~sky/ ), founder and board member

of EarthLink, is a Scientologist.

The above introduces new questions that Factnet demands the Board of

Directors at Earthlink answer in a written public statement

1. is there any relationship between Sky Dayton being a Scientologist and

the skewing of internal search results in Earthlink?

2. if the buck stops with the Earthlink CEO Charles (Garry) Betty, then has

this skewing of internal search results in Earthlink occurred with his

blessing?

3. The Earthlink internal search engine is run by Overture.com (GoTo.com)

yet there are no prices listed in the search results (Overture.com is a

Pay-Per-Click search engine service.) Since there are anti-scientology sites

hosted by Earthlink and these do not pop up in the first 53 results does

this prove that the Scientology search results have been manipulated?

A. Either the pro scientology sites hosted by Earthlink have been boosted by

a bid via Overture.com and the bid does not appear, or..

B. there is some other manipulation afoot that is not bid-related.

4. Further investigation has shown that one cannot bid at Overture.com to

affect the results of any given search engine. If one places a bid on a term

then it will either affect all the Overture.com affiliates or it will affect

none of the Overture.com affiliates. So how is it possible that Earthlink

internal searches show such biased results?

5. Still further investigation (i.e. Searching on the word "Scientology" at

http://www.overture.com/ to see who is bidding on the term) shows that 42

websites are currently bidding on the term "scientology" (11/21/01). Yet

only one of them is an Earthlink site. Ergo, it would appear that the skewed

search results are not the result of open bidding in Overture.com.

Scientology is globally considered an extremely dangerous cult. It has been

banned or restricted in many countries. It is considered by experts on

Scientology to fall into the satanic religious category. It is unthinkable

that Earthlink customers particularly those with Christian backgrounds might

be unknowingly supporting such an organization.

It is time for the executives at Earthlink to rapidly address the questions

raised and practices disclosed in this editorial. (For more information on

Scientology go to http://www.factnet.org/Scientology/dianetics.html ).

IMHO

Lawrence Wollersheim

This editorial opinion provided by FactNet, Inc. FactNet is a nonprofit

Internet archive and newswire service dedicated to protecting freedom of

mind by reducing harms caused by cults and mind control. FactNet's web page

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