Welcome to Hypocrisy, Inc! How may we fail to serve you?
Quick post this time. An email I sent to the Contact Us link at a company called TownNews.com. I just thought I’d echo it here, since I think the Internet-at-large deserves to know what happens after you do business with these guys.
I was attempting to read a movie review from 2004 using this link:
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/life_of_david_gale/articles/1235143/_alan_parker_lures_you_into_the_theater_but_then_you_sit_down_and_all_he_has_waiting_for_you_is_a_whoopee_cushion
only to find a splash page saying that “The Star Democrat is no longer a website affiliate of the Zwire product.”Following the link on that page to TownNews.com, the first thing that greets me is your motto:
“Our mission: To help newspapers thrive in an online world.”
Does your company feel the best way to implement that mission is to completely break all links to the Star Democrat’s content?
Breaking links is a sin. Don’t do it.
And if you’re a content creator, and you’re about to sign up for TownNews.com… make sure you put something in your contract to prevent them from totally screwing up your Google ranking and advertising revenue after you stop using… whatever service they provide.
(BTW, visit the real Star Democrat site to give these guys some ad impressions that TownNews.com is stealing from them.)