Ya’ll may remember that I offered to post your opinions about the eHow problem here if stated reasonably, even they differed from my own. I don’t need your name or email address, just a belief that your statement is sincere.
And while I may choose to turn my head from that train wreck as much as I am able, and to focus on what we can all do to improve the industry and our individual opportunities, I am honored that someone has entrusted me to carry their message to the public.
The source of this message, in this case a third party, will remain private. Records will be retained in the event of a valid court order to produce them.
Following is the opinion sent to me today by Anonymous:
I wouldn’t get too excited yet about today’s announcement. Ehow is not doing this out of the goodness of their hearts or because it is the right thing.They are doing it because they got caught with their pants down and a bare arse in the dead of this cold, cold winter. I personally believe they underestimated the masses, being the the ‘users’, and gave no thought to the fact than any of us were smart enough or would dare speak out. When the lawyer piped in last week with what could very easily be an argument presented in court and debated on its merits for jurisdiction of the site, I believe those on high took notice and perhaps thought better of proceeding.
I’ve not checked but my guess is the UK site is not domiciled in the US as someone said, but in the UK where the rules and laws are very different. And if someone who knows about this were to dig a little, I wouldn’t be surprised if they, DM have a surprise up their sleeves with reference to the TOU where we sign away all our rights and give them the right to use our material anyway they want. If they are out of the US doing it, then we have no recourse. Maybe it’s my paranoid freedom fighter rearing its years-old head, but frankly, this is not an innocent little game being played. I have no idea of their agenda, only that they like to make money
Anyway, don’t hold your breath. You’ll probably turn blue by the time the the articles are removed from the UK and we’ll be rolling in our graves before they give us any earnings from the time they were listing. I hope I’m wrong. We’ll see.
Thank you, Anonymous.
Is this all about the money changing hands? I had not heard about this until now. I no longer write for eHow, but do receive a monthly residual income, which I really, really love. But, I am also looking for other places to write and receive a residual income too.
Thanks for sharing..
Note from author: The following comment was sent to me anonymously.
I started writing for ehow the first week of January, 2009. I averaged about 30 to 40 articles a month on there, until I decided to go at it full force starting in the late summer. I started charting my stats in Sept.
In Sept I had 280 articles (many where fairly new) and I made 84.00. To date I have 621 ehow articles and this month, so far I’ve made 44.00. I am on track to make 4.00 more than when I had 280 articles. I understand that some of my articles are not huge paying keywords, but many are average paying and receive a decent amount of traffic.
I do not say anything on the eHow forums now. Once I spoke out in the forums at ehow I was verbally attacked and my nerves can not handle it.
I am just sick that I dedicated that amount of time to them and they have ripped me off. I am a single mother with only the income I make off the internet to survive, writing and ebay. I haven’t received any child support for over 3 years and can’t believe I put that much time into something with hardly any result.