Call the Department of Justice Stop Ancestry.com from taking over Archives.com

Discussion:

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samsloan

2012-04-26 15:04:09 UTC

Call the Department of Justice Stop Ancestry.com from taking over
Archives.com

It has just been announced that ancestry.com is taking over
archives.com

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865554682/Ancestry-buys-Archivescom-to-expand-family-history-industry.html

This must be stopped, because ancestry.com has already gobbled up
several other free Internet websites and has converted them to pay-
only websites or has closed them down altogether. For example the
immensely valuable Social Security Death Index was bought by
ancestry.com and has since disappeared.

Ancestry.com has already taken over Footnote.com, Genealogy.com and
RootsWeb.com

By the way, ancestry.com is a Mormon website with a connection to a
certain presidential candidate, in case you have not noticed.

Monopoly laws such as the Sherman Anti-Trust Act should be examined to
see if they can apply to one Internet based company taking over
another Internet based company.

Archives.com primarily scans public domain works published before 1923
and makes them available for Internet downloading. I used them
recently to reprint the book “Struggle” by World Chess Champion
Emanuel Lasker. Although the book can still be downloaded free of
charge from archives.com many people do not like to read books online
and thus have bought my reprint where they can flip through the pages.
If the takeover by ancestry.com is successful, based on their track
record, these resources will no longer be available to the public.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/4871874656
http://search.barnesandnoble.com/books/product.aspx?ISBN=4871874656

The Real Sam Sloan

j***@yahoo.com

2012-04-27 23:53:02 UTC

Permalink

Post by samsloan
Call the Department of Justice Stop Ancestry.com from taking over
Archives.com
It has just been announced that ancestry.com is taking over
archives.com
http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865554682/Ancestry-buys-Archivesco...
This must be stopped, because ancestry.com has already gobbled up
several other free Internet websites and has converted them to pay-
only websites or has closed them down altogether. For example the
immensely valuable Social Security Death Index was bought by
ancestry.com and has since disappeared.
Ancestry.com has already taken over Footnote.com, Genealogy.com and
RootsWeb.com
By the way, ancestry.com is a Mormon website with a connection to a
certain presidential candidate, in case you have not noticed.
Monopoly laws such as the Sherman Anti-Trust Act should be examined to
see if they can apply to one Internet based company taking over
another Internet based company.
Archives.com primarily scans public domain works published before 1923
and makes them available for Internet downloading. I used them
recently to reprint the book “Struggle” by World Chess Champion
Emanuel Lasker. Although the book can still be downloaded free of
charge from archives.com many people do not like to read books online
and thus have bought my reprint where they can flip through the pages.
If the takeover by ancestry.com is successful, based on their track
record, these resources will no longer be available to the public.
http://www.amazon.com/dp/4871874656http://search.barnesandnoble.com/books/product.aspx?ISBN=4871874656
The Real Sam Sloan

I don't think any relation to a Presidential candidate has anything to
do with this issue. I am annoyed at Archives.com because it now
stands between me and the cemeteries where I have family members.

Rusty

2012-04-28 00:43:34 UTC

Permalink

Post by j***@yahoo.com

Have you used the Find A Grave website. Appears to me that
Archives.com has not been a FREE site.

Your smrat ®

2012-04-30 13:13:07 UTC

Permalink

Post by samsloan
Monopoly laws such as the Sherman Anti-Trust Act should be examined to
see if they can apply to one Internet based company taking over
another Internet based company.

Excellent point Spam. Perhaps you should use Google to determine
whether it's a violation of antitrust law for one internet based
company can take over another internet based company and then when you
work it out you can post the answer on Deja News. Once you have the
answer to whether it's a violation of antitrust law for one internet
based company can take over another internet based company I'll post
it on my Facebook page and make a video for utube.

samsloan

2012-04-30 14:31:14 UTC

Permalink

Ancestry.com takeover of Archives.com Problem

The problem as I see it is that most of us involved in genealogical
research do it because of personal interest such as finding our own
origins, or for religious reasons. Nobody involved in genealogical
research is motivated by financial profit.

Prior to the Internet, there were thousands of people researching
their family history, but they did not know about each other. This is
painstaking and time consuming work. Then they recorded their results
in family bibles or other such places. When they died, all of their
data and information was lost.

Now, with the Internet we can suddenly find each other and merge our
findings together.

For example, when I started this I only knew the names of three of my
grandparents. I did not know the names of any of my great-
grandparents.

Now, I know the names and dates of 30,000 blood relatives. I have some
branches of my family tree going back to the year 1500. All these
findings were made possible by the Internet.

I have contributed all this data free of charge to several Internet
genealogical websites. One reason I do this is I am hoping that others
will use my data and expand on it, finding new links that I have not
been able to find. I am constantly finding long lost or newly
discovered relatives through this method.

Now, I am discovering that Ancestry.com has bought up and purchased
several of the websites to which I have contributed my data. They have
closed down some of these websites. On others, they are selling for
profit the information I gave them free of charge.

Ancestry dot com is a purely business enterprise, motivated by
financial profit. It is a publicly traded Internet company
(NASDAQ: ACOM) based in Provo, Utah, USA. They are only in it for the
money and have been ruthless in buying and then shutting down free
websites in order to maximize their financial profit.

For example, they shut down the Social Security Death Index. They say
that they did this because of privacy concerns and because of identity
theft by criminals. However, these claims are obviously bogus, because
they have made the Social Security Death Index available on a monthly
subscription fee basis. Obviously, criminals will pay the fees to get
the information. It is us, the general public, who have only an
occasional need for this information who now cannot get it.

Typically of ancestry.com operations, the Social Security Death Index
contains information obtained free of charge from the US Government.
They get the data for free and then will sell it to us for profit. I
suggest that there is something wrong with this and Ancestry dot com
should be stopped from gobbling up any more Internet websites.

Sam Sloan