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Promises To Keep

Geoff Rosenberg
2001.04.02

I wonder if you are aware, but when Steve Jobs introduced the original iMac at MWNY 1998, he promised every buyer who signed up a perpetual 1 MB website with Netopia at a special MYNVO domain name that was ours in perpetuity. I established an account and set up a site replete with images and text crafted with online tools provided for that purpose.

My website has been like a detailed billboard for the specialty brake parts market seeker and has engendered 27,500+ page hits and has been accelerating notably in the last several months due to links from others. I got a call yesterday morning from a national auto magazine called Peterson's 4 Wheeler and Offroad doing a special issue on specialty suppliers of antique parts and they called just for my website address.

Well, Apple has decided not to continue its commitment any longer and has ordered the summary execution of all accounts for midnight tonight according to an email I received yesterday morning. I can't even transition my site to a paid subscription with Netopia because of the format and terms of the contract between Apple and Netopia. I was told to hurry up and copy all the pages as best I can to save what I can. There will be no pointers offered to bring people from the original address to any new one. I am royally screwed.

I will lose real and potential business long before I can establish a new site and relink to those I know who refer to my site.

I believe that tens of thousands of people are affected and I have seen nothing in the Mac press about this donnybrook.

If you read this in time please see http://www.mynvo.com/brakeparts.

How can the accountable parties be made to own up to what they are doing? This seems almost as big as the free tech support offered to Performa owners 5-6 years ago that was reneged.

Someone needs to raise their voice to alert Mac owners to the terrible waste and lost that is going on in the Mac community. My business is going to suffer real monetary damages.

Please gather the facts and report to your readers about this; Apple needs to know that this is unacceptable behavior! In perpetuity is not just for 2.5 years . . . it means forever. It means you don't destroy utterly what others have painstakingly built.

Thank you for your attention to this matter,

Yours,
Geoff Rosenberg
President,
Alretta Truck Parts, Inc.

- "Where parts are a science and service is an art"

Alretta Truck Parts, Inc.
207 A Street
Boston, Ma. 02210

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