I received this earlier but wanted to read it thoroughly before sharing it with the Lists. For a year now, I have been watching this develop and have warned all my friends. Seems that the things I was concerned about are moving along at at fast pace. Well, lets support rootsweb, and then, come what may, we always can share what we each have and slow down monopoly profits! Janice GenMassachusetts-L@rootsweb.com ----------------------------------------------------------- From: JYoung6180@aol.com Reply-to: GEIGER-L@rootsweb.com To: GEIGER-L@rootsweb.com As we enter this New Year of 1999 I am a bit concerned about the future of genealogical research on the Internet as we now know it. I am concerned that we could be falling on hard times when it comes to the sharing and FREE exchange of data including our mailing lists, GenConnect Boards, US and World GenWeb and the Archives for these projects, IIGS, and many other projects run largely by volunteers. The developments over the past few months and years in which Banner Blue AND Parsons were swallowed up by Broderbund, and then Broderbund was swallowed up once again by The Learning Company, who also gobbled up Palladium Interactive (producers of Ultimate Family Tree); and The Learning Company just now being taken over by Mattel--all serve to put us in the very bad situation in which approximately 85% of the genealogy-related programs and data are falling into the hands of of this one huge company. In addition Ancestry (another for- profit business) just sold 30% of their company to CMG (a venture capital company) for $10,000,000. This is money on top of the $60/year they get from "tens of thousands of subscribers" (from the Wall Street Journal). The venture capitalists will be expecting a large return for their investment--which will be paid for by us genealogists. All of this puts both Ancestry and Mattel in a very powerful position of being able to buy datasets of information (thus acquiring exclusive rights to those datasets) and sell them at inflated prices to the public who believe this is the only way things can be done. This move is already well under way. The more people paying top dollar for the information either through subscription, or the purchase of CDs, the more money the powerful for-profit companies will have to again purchase the rights to additional records and books. The longterm goal of the many volunteer workers, and of RootsWeb which hosts many of the projects, is to provide free access to genealogical information. I know it has the folks at RootsWeb VERY troubled right now that they do not have the resources to stop this avalanche of vital records and publications being purchased and removed from FREE public access for all time. In order to stop the flow of this information into the hands of the large companies it would be necessary for RootsWeb to purchase them and then offer them for free access to all of us on their Web space. They would like very much to accomplish this before it is forever too late to do so. While the access to the information is FREE, it is far from FREE acquiring the rights to the information in the first place. All of the mergers and acquisitions of the past year or so create a very serious threat to the continuance of genealogical research on the Internet as we now know it and as most of us believe it should be in the future. We are no longer playing on a level playing field. I think everyone needs to give this matter serious thought as we start the New Year. Everyone needs to decide what they want the future of Internet genealogy to be and then support what they feel is the correct approach. We need to examine our goals and what we would LIKE to see for the future of Internet genealogy. Do we want to see a future where all genealogical source materials must be bought and paid top dollar for, or would we rather see the information put online at non-subscription Web sites so that future genealogists can access them freely? It may already be too late with the recent mergers and acquisitions creating such large powerful companies with deep pockets that are very difficult to match on a dollar for dollar basis. I think everyone doing genealogical research on the Internet needs to consider whether they would like to support the efforts of RootsWeb with a small contribution of $12 (more would be even better) or whether they would like to see the world of the future of genealogy dominated by the large for-profit companies who can sell the same data (and hold exclusive rights to it) at whatever the market will support. Some serious food for thought for the coming New Year! I will now get off my soapbox and promise not to be so "preachy" again very soon, but I feel this matter is an important one to us all and today seemed the appropriate time to discuss it with all of you. Happy New Year! Joan M. Young, Administrator Geiger GenConnect Boards Queries: http://cgi.rootsweb.com/~genbbs/genbbs.cgi/FamilyAssoc/Geiger Bible Records: http://cgi.rootsweb.com/~genbbs/genbbs.cgi/FamilyAssoc/GeigerBibl Bios: http://cgi.rootsweb.com/~genbbs/genbbs.cgi/FamilyAssoc/GeigerBios Deeds: http://cgi.rootsweb.com/~genbbs/genbbs.cgi/FamilyAssoc/GeigerDeed Obits: http://cgi.rootsweb.com/~genbbs/genbbs.cgi/FamilyAssoc/GeigerObits Pensions: http://cgi.rootsweb.com/~genbbs/genbbs.cgi/FamilyAssoc/GeigerPens Wills: http://cgi.rootsweb.com/~genbbs/genbbs.cgi/FamilyAssoc/GeigerWill Visit The Geiger Connection Webpage: http://homepages.rootsweb.com/~geiger/ List Moderator, GEIGER-L@rootsweb.com Editor, The Kiger Kounter newsletter HELP MAINTAIN FREE ACCESS TO GENEALOGICAL INFORMATION ON THE INTERNET IN 1999 BY SUPPORTING ROOTSWEB: http://www.rootsweb.com/rootsweb/how-to- subscribe.html/ ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com