So I received an email from Wayne Poncia, the CEO of Etraffic Solutions, on December 8, 2009. I’ve waited to post his email and my reply back, expecting to get a response from him or Etraffic but that hasn’t happened, so here we go:
His email to me (Dated: December 8, 2009):
Sasan,
Thank you for bringing this issue to my attention. As soon as I received your notice, I investigated to find that, as you indicated, the www.schoolr.com URL was copied into the public source code of the SchoolWAX site. Reading your concern about its inclusion I instructed Etraffic staff to find the reference and remove it. I apologize on Etraffic’s behalf for the error that was made. It should not have occurred.
Regarding the press release about SchoolWAXTV claiming to be Canada’s “first” all in one homework site, I agree that that this statement is open to interpretatoin. In response to your concern about the claim of “first” I checked into why our marketing person wrote the sentence the way that she did. The response I received was that the combination of video and homework help was, in her mind, a “first.” However, I see no harm in removing the word “first” from the release and have instructed staff to remove it.
I reviewed the schoolr site and I think you are providing a great service. It appears to be targeted to post-secondary students and is a great one-stop jumping off spot to credible research resources. I enjoyed the humour on the site as well.
From what I understand, schoolr is a non-revenue generating site in the same way that SchoolWAX and SchoolWAXTV are free services. SchoolWAX and SchoolWAXTV actually came from a personal frustration that I had with my own children relying exclusively on Google and YouTube for research online. I wanted them to use some of the many homework help sites available worldwide and, as a result, had SchoolWAX and SchoolWAXTV created as a free directory of quality homework help sites. SchoolWAX and SchoolWAXTV promise no advertising and no revenue generation from either site. Sponsorship is free.
SchoolWAX and SchoolWAXTV do not target post-secondary students (as you can see the SchoolWAX target audience is elementary, middle and secondary). I like schoolr’s more mature offering for post-secondary. If you like, we would be willing to link to schoolr from SchoolWAX and recommend it as a post-secondary resource? As well, I would be happy to include schoolr as a sponsor on the SchoolWAX and SchoolWAXTV sites. The only thing we ask for in return for sponsorship is that your organization (in this case schoolr) link to SchoolWAX and/or SchoolWAXTV.
I am sorry that this situation has occurred and have taken steps to address your concerns. I wish you well with schoolr, it is a great service.Wayne Poncia
Chief Executive Officer
My response to him (Dated: December 16, 2009)
Wayne,
I appreciate the fact that you are taking steps to ameliorate this situation. I certainty understand how personal frustration can fuel innovation and I hope that we can both continue to provide useful services to the community at large. While your vision for SchoolWax may have been pure, its implementation, by your own admittance, was sullied by a developer at your company.
While SchoolWax may not be generating direct revenue, as it is a free service, it does act as a method of promoting Etraffic’s products. An example of this can be seen through the ‘Featured Product’ section of the “Educators” page. This can also be confirmed by an educator’s testimonial on SchoolWax’s “About Us” page, “I was blown away by the Pilot Math online trial on SchoolWAX and knew I had to have it because my district is going online. -Gr. 7 Teacher, NVSD 44.”
I welcome competition and I urge SchoolWax to be constantly innovating. And while I agree that there are many similar web services and websites out there, I disagree that they can directly take from one another, unless express consent is provided; be it design, function, or in this matter, code. The fact of the matter is, a developer from your company based SchoolWax off of Schoolr and this was demonstrated by Schoolr’s code being featured in SchoolWax’s code. As a result of this, I am seeking compensation.
I hope that we can negotiate some sort of settlement, and I invite you to provide me with an offer.
I appreciate the removal of the claim that SchoolWax was “first” and you are more than free to publicly link to Schoolr.
Regards,
Sasan
It’s been almost a month since I sent my email and Etraffic has not attempted to contact me since. Maybe they figure that I’ll give up or forget about it.
I was doing some research on Etraffic Solutions and I found this article from the Financial Post Business Magazine (dated: December 2006). It talks about how Etraffic Solutions was fined $12,500 from The Canadian Alliance Against Software Theft for using pirated copies of Microsoft and Symantec products in their office. Interesting.
Here’s a quote from the article:
“Wayne Poncia, a partner with eTraffic Solutions, a Victoria-based online-learning content provider, also takes issue with CAAST’s strategy. Poncia’s company got in trouble with CAAST in 2004 for using pirated copies of Microsoft and Symantec programs, and paid a $12,500 penalty. The investigation was a result of a tip — Poncia suspects an unhappy ex-employee. Nevertheless, he feels CAAST would be more effective if it softened its approach. “Negative ads and scare tactics don’t work,” he says. “CAAST would have a far broader impact if it collaborated with companies and assisted them in monitoring their software, instead of trying to get employees to rat on their companies.” Read the full thing on Sarah Efron’s website.
That’s it for now, I have some readings to get to. I just wanted to let everyone know where everything stands now. Expect some more updates in the next few days.
P.S. Thanks for all the emails/Facebook messages! You guys rock.
