Inherently, Multi-Level Marketing (MLM) is a perfectly good business model; at least it started out that way. Companies such as Amway,  Avon, Pre-Paid Legal, Plexus and others still use it, legitimately and with much success.

Originally, MLM was designed so that companies would have a way to develop a distribution network for their products. When a person joins an MLM company as a distributor, they earn commissions in two ways. The first is by the sale of the actual products. The second income stream results by recruiting additional distributors and then earning a commission on their sales. There is nothing inherently wrong with this business model.

The problem is the original concept of MLM has come under heavy abuse by scam artists. The advent of the Internet has only exacerbated that situation. The abuses fall into two basic categories: pyramid schemes and Ponzi schemes. In both cases the emphasis has gone from the sale of a product to recruitment of additional members. Therein lies both the practical and legal problem.

Pyramid schemes have been around for centuries. Basically, they work like this: you pay into a program that, in theory, sells a particular product. You are also encouraged to recruit other members. In the case of most Internet MLM programs however, you don’t actually sell anything. The money you “invest” goes to the people at the top of the pyramid (the program originators). The people on the lower levels of the pyramid are promised huge profits, but in fact, they get very little or nothing.

Ponzi schemes are similar to pyramid schemes except there is no pretense of having a product to sell. You pay into the program and then recruit additional members to do the same. Chief among these types of scams on the Internet are the so-called “Randomizer” programs. The concept is similar to the old “chain letter” scams where you send $5 to the 5 people at the top of the list,  and then put your name on the bottom. Supposedly, in a few weeks as your name moves up the list, you will receive a small fortune in the U.S. mail. As WC Fields would say, “there’s a sucker born every minute”.

Besides the question of legality (and that is a serious issue), the problem is these programs are created to earn money for those at the top. As an example, let’s assume a pyramid/Ponzi where each person has to bring in 5 new members just to recoup his or her original investment in the program. For instance, if your “entry fee” into the program is $25, a “payback” of $5 for each person you recruit for the program requires 5 additional people for you just to break even.  Sound reasonable?  It isn’t. Let’s look at the reality.

It’s all about simple math and the power of 5 (5x5x5x5…).

The first level doesn’t require anything to recoup the original investment since he/she is the scheme originator. The 5 people in the second level need 25 new members in order for each of them to break even. Those in the third level then need 125 additional people to join the program. Those 125 in the fourth level require 625 new members. The fifth level requires 3,125 new members. Level six needs 15,625 new members. By the time you get to level 7, a total of 78,125 new people need to join in order for the suckers on level 7 to just break even. God help the people in the next level, who need 390,625 new members. Just keep multiplying by 5. Before long, the number of new members required would exceed the population of the planet. These schemes simply, and ALWAYS, implode by the weight of their own membership and the requirement for new “recruits”.

And in case you aren’t aware of it, Pyramid and Ponzi schemes are illegal.

Are all of the MLM-type companies on the Internet scams? No, they aren’t. There are numerous perfectly legitimate affiliate programs that use similar models. Some of these programs do make money for the hard working affiliate and are operated in a professional and ethical way. The operative word is some.

If you are contemplating this route you would be well advised to do your research. Join some of the many Internet Marketing forums and ask other people. Check the scam monitoring sites available on the Internet. If all else fails, ask an attorney.

But as a basic guideline, the formula is simple. If the primary focus of a particular program you are contemplating seems more focused on recruitment than sales (especially when there appears to be no actual product), and the claims of instant riches sound too good to be true, I would suggest you run for the hills. Once the program has reached its point of diminishing returns, the program owner will fold the tent and you will be left holding the (empty) bag. And for these reasons, we prohibit any kind of MLM activity on our network. Buyer beware.

GoDaddy sucks. Period. If it isn’t obvious to you from the smutty campaigns with Danica Patrick, supposed President and former CEO “Bob Parsons” having ‘secrets’ like, “The SECRETS to finding and hiring GREAT employees. + 2 Smoking-Hot Go Daddy Girls!”, while being totally sexist and a general creeper, poor advertising in general or the absolutely crappy hosting plans they over-sell hosting nodes on, then we need to talk. This has been a long time coming from us as timing is everything. We wanted to make sure that we took proper precautions to protect ourselves, our intellectual property and free speech as what we’re pissed off about is far from acceptable and borders on near to criminal on Go Daddy, Inc.’s behalf. So to make it crystal clear, this is an account of our experience and not some random slanderous prose on who to hate.

GoDaddy

Might as well preface this with: A) It’s technical, B) It’s personal, and C) We gave them ample opportunity to make this problem right before we had to take the issue into our own hands. And in light of recent SOPA problems with GoDaddy, we hope this testimonial is even more of a reason that you don’t use their service. Speaking of, their real CEO, Warren Adelman, put out a statement about SOPA stating that because the Senate couldn’t come to a consensus that GoDaddy was no longer supporting SOPA. Read that again if you need to figure out why we’re astonished or read the whole article about SOPA and GoDaddy sucking. Now, on to the show!

We affiliated ourselves with GoDaddy, a.k.a. GoDaddy.com or Go Daddy, Inc., as an ICANN domain provider back in 2006 before we went public and as a reseller in 2008 to offer competitive pricing and an alternative storefront when we did begin offering public services. As a reseller, they take one of their other companies, Starfield Technologies as well as Wild West Domains (remember this name, it’s key to what went wrong) and have your WHOIS/Registration information pass through them. Since then, we’ve obviously learned that there are just as viable alternatives to domain acquisition and purchases than dealing with GoDaddy, often for pennies more or less. And our network continues to grow.

Looking for a way to keep costs the same or lower and provide the same if not better service, we looked at integrating what was called GoDaddy’s AnyCast DNS now called ‘Premium DNS’. We suspect that they stopped calling it ‘AnyCast DNS’ because you can’t serve DNS from one datacenter and honestly call it AnyCast… sort of a technical oxymoron. This was to be used as an extension of our services and as an alternative to running solely our own network of DNS servers. We didn’t jump in with both feet, but we were deep enough to start losing air before it was too late.

We called and spoke to a sales representative about their services a long time ago, long before our trust was broken and our issue ever occurred. At the time, we declined moving forward with their DNS service because there was no way to CNAME or create a hostname for the servers that matched a domain name of our own as we said a moment ago. When GoDaddy added the ‘vanity name servers’ bit to the DNS service, we were more interested. We called back several months later and spoke to a sales representative that we had make sure with her supervisor her statement was accurate and ordered the Premium DNS service because we were able to not hand out a string like a CDN does. At the time, we had been hosting our own servers and wanted at least one extension off of that for even more redundancy. Since we already had our .com at GoDaddy at the time with the core hostnames coming from GoDaddy, it was easy to say yes to testing out something for like $2.99 a month since we were paying much more than that per DNS server.

Before I get too far into this, a very important part of hosting relies on DNS. DNS to the layman is a server or network system which broadcasts the IP address or location of a server by converting the name of a top-level domain like turkreno.com into an IP address. DNS serves out usually every request that goes through a network and it also plays a very large part in the latency, or speed, in which content is found. There are times when a network is undiscoverable or slow just because of routing issues with backbone service providers. Those providers in the United States, such as AT&T, Global Crossing, Layer3 and others actually run the flow of the Internet and usually own the fiber optic cable on which it runs. So, when a DNS server does a query, the response or reply may tell your traffic to go to Washington first, because that’s where the first router is between you and the domain that resolved and the server you’re asking for, then further “hops” to other locations until your request reaches its destination. Having multiple servers, or an AnyCast-type network, that are within multiple datacenters around the world where those backbones are routed through provides what’s known as a Point-of-Presence (POP) and will decrease latency since the answer is locally cached to that router. In a worst cast scenario, the traffic where a network client requests a site that isn’t cached by the ISP, which is the usual case, the router may have to search or query the router ahead of it to search for a resolving DNS server, thus creating latency. Speed is of the essence and maybe that explains why this improvement is important for any network.

Digressing back to what happened is most likely easier if we just put it into a handy mind map and bullet out the entire issue here for those who don’t want to view a huge PDF. For months this issue was up on the whiteboard in the office and it took precisely that long to fix all of the screwed up issues that happened. We ended up making a mind map chart of what went wrong and we’ll go from there.

We spent hours on this with them. Hours we want back from our lives. Maybe we can save you some time. Switch hosting to us, we’re not on GoDaddy’s crappy 4GH Network or whatever they want to call it. Or maybe you want to contact the Office of the President for GoDaddy. No problem, here’s all of their contact info:

E-Mail: president@godaddy.com

Phone: 408-505-8828

CEO: Warren Adelman

Alt. Numbers to GoDaddy Corporate Offices: 408-505-8800

So, when you think of DNS hopefully GoDaddy won’t be the first that comes to mind. We’ve got an awesome platform setup to accommodate multiple types of needs, including those of web masters using Linux or WHM/cPanel. Contact us if you’re interested. It’s private for the time being, but will be live soon.

Don’t trust GoDaddy with your DNS, their SysAdmins know NOTHING of how to complete a ticket and they COULD be stealing your traffic, or worse, blocking it because their tech support knows NOTHING.

The great evil of the modern day Internet: SOPA. The Stop Online Piracy Act, or as it’s formally known H.R. 3261, which threatens Freedom of Speech and Expression on the Internet. The Bill titles itself with the very false objective – “To promote prosperity, creativity, entrepreneurship, and innovation by combating the theft of U.S. property, and for other purposes.” – and it’s the “Other purposes” as usual we’re all worried about. Blocking a site at the DNS level is one of the primary concerns. The other concerns that we’ve heard and see online are the linking of one site to a site that is infringing against Copyright laws. With SOPA marked as it is now, the whole site would be taken down rather than the offending content. What ever happened to the DMCA? Wasn’t that good enough? Apparently not.

This Act, when read in further detail, not only pressures Internet Service Providers like TurkReno to make rather extraneous measures to filter content and national providers of ICANN services to block a domain that they blacklist from search engine results and beyond. If they passes it to the US Senate then you can expect more than one derivative of its kind following SOPA. You see, it’s failed before. And, like a bad cold, this is another variant. Here’s the best summary from Wikipedia that shows what it was and how it’s moving:

The PROTECT IP Act is a re-write of the Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act (COICA), which failed to pass in 2010. A similar House version of the bill, the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) was introduced on October 26, 2011.

GoDaddy

What’s disgusting about this is that GoDaddy, one of the largest ICANN domain registrars was, and under speculation still is, supporting the writing of this Act. They crafted it themselves. And then they release a press release today stating they would not further support SOPA, but we don’t trust it and neither should you. If they knew what they were getting themselves into, then it’s clear that their Executives are bluffing their way into keeping business. What really matters here is that they see the big picture. GoDaddy isn’t the only registrar.

And, with as much content as GoDaddy hosts, and over-sells (see Caption 1), they’d shut down 5,000 to 6,000, yes – THOUSAND, customers at a time per ONE (1) SOPA takedown order.

And here’s what they had to say:

GoDaddy No Longer Supports SOPA

Looks to Internet Community & Fellow Tech Leaders to Develop Legislation We All Support

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. (Dec. 23, 2011) – Go Daddy is no longer supporting SOPA, the “Stop Online Piracy Act” currently working its way through U.S. Congress.

“Fighting online piracy is of the utmost importance, which is why Go Daddy has been working to help craft revisions to this legislation – but we can clearly do better,” Warren Adelman, Go Daddy’s newly appointed CEO, said. “It’s very important that all Internet stakeholders work together on this. Getting it right is worth the wait. Go Daddy will support it when and if the Internet community supports it.”

Go Daddy and its General Counsel, Christine Jones, have worked with federal lawmakers for months to help craft revisions to legislation first introduced some three years ago. Jones has fought to express the concerns of the entire Internet community and to improve the bill by proposing changes to key defined terms, limitations on DNS filtering to ensure the integrity of the Internet, more significant consequences for frivolous claims, and specific provisions to protect free speech.

“As a company that is all about innovation, with our own technology and in support of our customers, Go Daddy is rooted in the idea of First Amendment Rights and believes 100 percent that the Internet is a key engine for our new economy,” said Adelman.

In changing its position, Go Daddy remains steadfast in its promise to support security and stability of the Internet. In an effort to eliminate any confusion about its reversal on SOPA though, Jones has removed blog postings that had outlined areas of the bill Go Daddy did support.

“Go Daddy has always fought to preserve the intellectual property rights of third parties, and will continue to do so in the future,” Jones said.

Here’s the great crux in this Press Release: SOPA has not been introduced to the US Senate. And it’s a reaction, not something they’ve done after hearing the SOPA proceedings. As celebrities threatened to leave GoDaddy, they pushed this out to stop the bail out. It’s a House of Representatives Bill. As stated on the US House of Representatives Website under “How Are Laws Made?” this answer can be found (We’re at the In Committee phase):

Laws begin as ideas. First, a representative sponsors a bill. The bill is then assigned to a committee for study. If released by the committee, the bill is put on a calendar to be voted on, debated or amended. If the bill passes by simple majority (218 of 435), the bill moves to the Senate. In the Senate, the bill is assigned to another committee and, if released, debated and voted on. Again, a simple majority (51 of 100) passes the bill. Finally, a conference committee made of House and Senate members works out any differences between the House and Senate versions of the bill. The resulting bill returns to the House and Senate for final approval. The Government Printing Office prints the revised bill in a process called enrolling. The President has 10 days to sign or veto the enrolled bill.

Anyone with half a brain can see this is just a PR stunt on GoDaddy’s behalf. Maybe even the protection of the recent additional DNSSEC properties which don’t totally jive with their product offerings. And admittedly DNSSEC doesn’t really jive with SOPA either, but it’s their main point of pressure to go after when attempting to take down a domain aside from seizing the name registration itself.

And the kicker to both Go Daddy and the rest of the world? DNSSEC is all controlled by IANA, Verisign, the gTLD (Generic Top-Level Domain) registrar for ALL .com and .net domains, acknowledging these Zone directives. ICANN and the U. S. Department of Commerce. Don’t believe me? http://www.root-dnssec.org.

Either way, this is part one of a few more that will outline why GoDaddy is failing as a company and why we believe that it’s not in your best interests to continue to do business with them.

Update 1/5/2012: GoDaddy, in all of it’s uncanny glory, has released a statement from CEO Warren Adleman. They don’t support SOPA because the representatives could not reach a consensus. I like one of the comments that state that “transparency should be a two-way street and not a one-way mirror”. Here’s the statement:

Go Daddy opposes SOPA because the legislation has not fulfilled its basic requirement to build a consensus among stake-holders in the technology and Internet communities. Our company regrets the loss of any of our customers, who remain our highest priority, and we hope to repair those relationships and win back their business over time.

Still don’t trust them. Part two coming soon.

This was just released from a Sony Fan-site. Hopefully this is an idle threat because we’re tired of the PSN going down…

Anonymous To “Destroy” Sony’s Online Network for SOPA Support

With Sony’s online service hacked and brought down earlier in the year by internet activists Anonymous, gamers everywhere suffered from the downtime of the PlayStation Network and its subsequent hack. Unfortunately, if you thought that it was all over, then you’d sadly be wrong – Anonymous seems to have declared war on Sony, again.

Hello, SONY.
We are Anonymous.

It has come to the attention of the Anonymous activist community that you have chosen to stand by the Stop Online Piracy Act. This act will halt online businesses and restrict access to many sites for many users. Supporting SOPA is like trying to throw an entire company from off a bridge. Your support to the act is a signed death warrant to SONY Company and Associates. Therefore, yet again, we have decided to destroy your network. We will dismantle your phantom from the internet. Prepare to be extinguished. Justice will be swift, and it will be for the people, whether some like it or not. Sony, you have been warned.

To those doubting our powers. We’ve infiltrated the servers of Bank of America, The United States Department of Defense, The United Nations, and Lockheed Martin. In one day.

For their approval to SOPA, we have also declared that our fury be brought upon the following persons. Justin Bieber. Lady Gaga. Kim Kardashian. and Taylor Swift.

Operation Blackout, engaged.
Operation Mayhem, engaged.
Operation LulzXmas, engaged.

We are Anonymous.
We are Legion.
We do not forgive.
We do not forget.

Supporters of SOPA, you should’ve expected us.

The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) is the highly controversial bill that, if passed, would give the US government and copyright holders powers to block access to “rogue websites dedicated to infringing or counterfeit goods”. But SOPA has received growing criticism by free speech activists and tech companies like Google and Facebook due to the vague terminology of the bill, which could mean sites like YouTube (or even PSLS) could be blocked for having copyrighted material submitted by users rather than the actual site owners.

With Sony being one of the largest publishers and producers of films, music and games, piracy has severely impacted their profits, and have a vested interest in SOPA being passed. While it’s fair to protest SOPA and any company that supports it, Anonymous’ actions earlier this year showed that the group is willing to let normal consumers suffer from their attacks.

It’s important to note that Anonymous have no central leadership, and this video seems to be the only declaration of war against Sony so far, so it’s hard to tell just how many Anonymous ‘members’ are actually behind the new attack.

Via: http://playstationlifestyle.net/2011/12/29/anonymous-to-destroy-sonys-online-network-for-sopa-support/

While we don’t support SOPA ourselves, we do understand the importance of anti-piracy measures. As stated above, no one knows just how many people are behind this, but it screams “look at me, we need attention” on behalf of Anonymous. This ridiculousness needs to be stopped, and by stopped I mean Anonymous stopped.

The White House today proposed sweeping revisions to U.S. copyright law, including making “illegal streaming” of audio or video a federal felony and allowing FBI agents to wiretap suspected infringers.

Victoria Espinel, the first Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator, with Vice President Joe Biden during an event last year.

Victoria Espinel, the first Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator, with Vice President Joe Biden during an event last year. (Credit: Whitehouse.gov)

In a 20-page white paper (PDF), the Obama administration called on the U.S. Congress to fix “deficiencies that could hinder enforcement” of intellectual property laws.

The report was prepared by Victoria Espinel, the first Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator who received Senate confirmation in December 2009, and represents a broad tightening of many forms of intellectual property law including ones that deal with counterfeit pharmaceuticals and overseas royalties for copyright holders. (See CNET’s report last month previewing today’s white paper.)

Some of the highlights:

  • The White House is concerned that “illegal streaming of content” may not be covered by criminal law, saying “questions have arisen about whether streaming constitutes the distribution of copyrighted works.” To resolve that ambiguity, it wants a new law to “clarify that infringement by streaming, or by means of other similar new technology, is a felony in appropriate circumstances.”
  • Under federal law, wiretaps may only be conducted in investigations of serious crimes, a list that was expanded by the 2001 Patriot Act to include offenses such as material support of terrorism and use of weapons of mass destruction. The administration is proposing to add copyright and trademark infringement, arguing that move “would assist U.S. law enforcement agencies to effectively investigate those offenses.”
  • Under the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act, it’s generally illegal to distribute hardware or software–such as the DVD-decoding software Handbrake available from a server in France–that can “circumvent” copy protection technology. The administration is proposing that if Homeland Security seizes circumvention devices, it be permitted to “inform rightholders,” “provide samples of such devices,” and assist “them in bringing civil actions.”

The term “fair use” does not appear anywhere in the report. But it does mention Web sites like The Pirate Bay, which is hosted in Sweden, when warning that “foreign-based and foreign-controlled Web sites and Web services raise particular concerns for U.S. enforcement efforts.” (See previous coverage of a congressional hearing on overseas sites.

The usual copyright hawks, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, applauded the paper, which grew out of a so-called joint strategic plan that Vice President Biden and Espinel announced in June 2010.

Rob Calia, a senior director at the Chamber’s Global Intellectual Property Center, said we “strongly support the white paper’s call for Congress to clarify that criminal copyright infringement through unauthorized streaming, is a felony. We know both the House and Senate are looking at this issue and encourage them to work closely with the administration and other stakeholders to combat this growing threat.

In October 2008, President Bush signed into law the so-called Pro IP ACT, which created Espinel’s position and increased penalties for infringement, after expressing its opposition to an earlier version.

Unless legislative proposals–like one nearly a decade ago implanting strict copy controls in digital devices–go too far, digital copyright tends not to be a particularly partisan topic. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act, near-universally disliked by programmers and engineers for its anti-circumvention section, was approved unanimously in the U.S. Senate.

At the same time, Democratic politicians tend to be a bit more enthusiastic about the topic. Biden was a close Senate ally of copyright holders, and President Obama picked top copyright industry lawyers for Justice Department posts. Last year, Biden warned that “piracy is theft.”

No less than 78 percent of political contributions from Hollywood went to Democrats in 2008, which is broadly consistent with the trend for the last two decades, according to OpenSecrets.org.

Via: CNET | White House wants new copyright law crackdown.

We love our local media. We grew up listening to them. Heck, sometimes we are the local media when they get too bored or “busy” to report something. But this is unfortunately a topic that hits us and a good deal of our clients square in the chest. It affects our business in a way that some of you may not even imagine. What is it you ask? The Oil Spill and the media syndicating false rumors surrounding it. I want to be very clear about one specific point because it seems to get lost in the wash of commotion and heartache of wildlife being at risk. What is that point I want to be clear about?

DO NOT BELIEVE EVERYTHING YOU SEE ON THE NEWS ABOUT THE OIL SPILL! EVERYTHING ON THE ALABAMA COAST IS JUST FINE! (Or at least it was when we wrote this…now, it’s really, really bad.)

We are tired of the fear-mongering and it has had a direct impact on our clients income which in turn hurts our income because they no longer have a budget to advertise in some cases. One thing that this has taught everyone is that regardless if it’s true or not (in this case it’s not), the fact that someone who has a very loud microphone keeps talking about it (AKA the media), the more tourists don’t want to come visit. There are not dead, oiled birds, dolphins or tuna on our coastline. There are not tar balls washing up that would be any different than any other day at the beach (it’s normal for tar balls to wash up at the beach). And there is no smell of oil in the air. The local media reported that there were tar balls but that they were not confirmed to be caused by the oil spill and that LESS THAN A DOZEN were found. Again, that’s not more than normal. Dead fish? Happens all the time. Is it the chemicals in the water? What makes you think there weren’t already chemicals in the water from boats before the oil spill?

It’s no longer comedic or a joke. We’ve gotten fed up with it and the tone of this article surely is indicative of that. And we’re not the only ones. The Eastern Shore Chamber of Commerce has spoken out against this fallacy of oil covering our beaches and the Gulf Coast being somewhere no one can visit right now too, and we commend them for it:

Friday, May 14, 2010

Dear Friend,

We are urgently working to combat the negative national media message and get the facts out to the United States and the world that the Gulf Coast, including Alabama, is open for business. Our goal is to pass the truth on. Yes, there is an oil spill, is it as bad as they say? You be the judge. At the bottom of this message is a link to information updated daily. It includes reports from NOAA, and daily pictures of the beaches in Baldwin County, Alabama. The beaches of Alabama and the Mobile Bay are very important to us all.. we are all working to be proactive and ready to protect our waterways and natural habitats, WE are committed to keeping you updated with the facts – not the fear factor.

The Eastern Shore Chamber of Commerce
www.eschamber.com

Here are a few facts from that link:

  • The Alabama Department of Public Health and Alabama Department of Environmental Management stated that there is no foreseeable need to close beaches and, short of a drastic change, they have no plans to do so.
  • Tarballs travel independently of an oil slick and are not an indication that the slick itself will travel in the same direction or to the same area. The oil slick still has not reached the beaches of Gulf Shores and Orange Beach and, according to NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) forecasts, is not expected to for at least 72 hours. Forecasts beyond 72 hours are not available.
  • Although NOAA has closed commercial and recreational fishing in a limited area between the mouth of the Mississippi River and Florida’s Pensacola Bay, there is a large area of the gulf still open.
  • All appropriate preventative measures, including oil-absorbing booms, are being used along Alabama’s beaches, bays, inlets and sensitive areas in an effort to prevent oil from reaching our shores. Researchers and scientists have indicated that any impact directly on the beaches can potentially be cleaned effectively and fairly quickly.

GO TO THIS LINK FOR PICTURES , MORE INFORMATION AND DAILY UPDATES!:

http://www.gulfshores.com/issues

Darrelyn
Darrelyn J. Bender
President/CEO
Eastern Shore Chamber of Commerce
P.O. Box 310
Daphne, AL 36526
251.621.8222
dbender@eschamber.com

What do you do in a case like this? Well, first: Speak out. Comment here. If you don’t think that’s good enough, call WALA, WKRG, or WPMI, The Press Register and the entire conglomerate of sites that run AL.com and NOLA.com and tell them to stop running stories about it. Second: Go share this and blog about it yourself. Third: Tell all of your friends it’s OK to come to the beach and business is still open for EVERYONE. This is a very passive-aggressive move from our own people! Airing headlines that bleed to lead, putting statements and then following up with “inconclusive” facts. Shame on you local media for ruining your own town and our economy!

The South Alabama market cannot take this. This is unjust and it’s all from the media! Speak out and tell them to quit!  AND DON’T LET THEM DISTRACT YOU WITH ANOTHER STORY!! (People won’t stop thinking it’s unsafe to come to the beach until THEY SAY ITS SAFE – which it IS!)