SCO Announces Plan to Increase Revenue 248
Devistater writes "Yesterday, SCO announced a new MLM called "Me Inc." using the EdgeClick platform in an attempt to boost sales. One of the apps on the Edgeclick site does mass text messages to cell phones. From the article: 'Becoming a Me Inc. Sales Agent requires no technical skills or training and no investment other than a smart phone and a subscription to Me Inc. digital services. With these two simple things, a sales agent can earn up to hundreds or thousands of dollars per sale in commissions and subscription annuities generated by each account they sign up.' Watch out for an increase in spam, SCO style. In the same press release [PDF], SCO also trademarks 'Me.' Groklaw also has a few details on their site."
Additional info on the story (Score:3, Informative)
Some direct quotes from the SCO press release.
"Becoming a Me Inc. Sales Agent requires no technical skills or training and no investment other than a smart phone and a subscription to Me Inc. digital services. With these two simple things, a sales agent can earn up to hundreds or thousands of dollars per sale in commissions and subscription annuities generated by each account they sign up."
"One of my main goals as the mayor of Provo City is to use technology to bless the lives of Provo residents, and Me Inc. is simply and effectively allowing me to do that," said Lewis K. Billings, mayor of Provo, Utah. "Me Inc. is an incredible technology, one which I plan to use continually throughout my term as it dramatically enhances my ability to personally reach constituents."
BTW,
MLM= Multi-Level Marketing:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-level_marketin
Pyramid Scheme:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyramid_scheme [wikipedia.org]
Thats basically what SCO is doing, a MLM/pyramid scheme.
Whats funny is that SCO's is a Utah based company, and Utah is where a huge percentage of MLM stuff originates.
I've even heard that one of the ppl who was on SCO's board was involved with starting a MLM a while back so this may be where Darl got the idea
Most MLM/Pyramid schemes are outright scams and illigal. Some few are not, if they actually sell a legitimate product. They are also the cause of a huge amount of spam.
BTW: In case there's any doubt, I'm NOT advocating this. I hate spam, scams and schemes. I just think its a stark example of how far SCO has fallen, and I want people to be aware of what shady things they are trying to do.
Re:SCO makes software? (Score:2, Informative)
They used to be cool, back in the days of Caldera, Love, and United Linux. With their distro and participation in a promising Linux distro standardisation effort, they were really contributing to free software quite nicely.
Yes, everything was very cool indeed, until Darth McBride took over. "Congratulations. In a few short months you've dethroned Bill Gates as the most hated man in the industry."
Re:Your pyramid scam intrigues me... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Additional info on the story (Score:3, Informative)
While MLMs have a negative reputation because of their proselytizing ways, they are not in themselves illegal, unethical or immoral.
Yes, this is already illegal (Score:2, Informative)
Acacia Mortgage in Arizona tried this.. adn they are facing several million dollars in court under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act [tcpalaw.com] ("TCPA"). It states at 47 USC 227(b):
any person outside the United States if the recipient is within
the United States--
(A) to make any call (other than a call made for emergency
purposes or made with the prior express consent of the called
party) using any automatic telephone dialing system or an
artificial or prerecorded voice--
(i) to any emergency telephone line (including any
``911'' line and any emergency line of a hospital, medical
physician or service office, health care facility, poison
control center, or fire protection or law enforcement
agency);
(ii) to the telephone line of any guest room or patient
room of a hospital, health care facility, elderly home, or
similar establishment; or
(iii) to any telephone number assigned to a paging
service, cellular telephone service, specialized mobile
radio service, or other radio common carrier service, or any
service for which the called party is charged for the call;
Joffee v. Acacia Nat'l Mtg. Corp., -- P.3d --, 2005 TCPA Rep 1381, 2005 WL 2303700 (Az. App, Sep 21, 2005) held that SMS messages to cell phones violated this law. The court stated: "27 Here, Joffe received two SMS messages from Acacia. Acacia used its computers to generate the messages and direct them to an e-mail address provided to Joffe by his carrier that was made up of Joffe's ten digit cellular telephone number and his cellular carrier's domain name. When Acacia's solicitations reached Joffe's carrier, it converted them into SMS messages and delivered them to Joffe's cellular telephone."
And in conclusion..." 49 By using an automatic dialing system to make Internet-to-phone SMS calls to Joffe's cellular telephone, Acacia violated 227(b)(1)(A)(iii) of the TCPA"
An order from the FCC also said such messages violate the law.
Re:Additional info on the story (Score:3, Informative)
Besides most profits in an MLM don't even come from the products anyway, they come from recruiting others and junk motivational courses. Since that is reality, losing is a virtual certainty. Even if you did manage through some miracle to recoup your investment by selling products, it certainly wouldn't pay for your time, the courses, the products you had to buy from your uplink, the damage done to your relationships etc. The only winners in such schemes are the immoral scumbags who set them up.
MLMs are poison, pure and simple. They promise riches, most people will get rags. By design.