I thought you might be interested in joining the boycott of Amazon.com.
Amazon.com has patented one-click purchasing systems and affiliate
programs. We feel that having a patent on these two technologies amounts to
owning e-Commerce. It is impossible to operate a viable e-commerce site
without these technologies.
Although patents serve a useful economic purpose, they are not appropriate
for all situations or technologies. When the innovator must invest much
more in the technology than followers, patents are a vital tool to
encourage innovation and the benefits justify the high price society pays
from the loss of competition. However, Amazon.com's competitors will need
to invest just as much to develop their own one-click and affiliate
programs. Copyrights and trademarks are sufficient protection in these
cases.
NoWebPatents.org has joined the boycott of Amazon.com and is estimating the
cost to Amazon. If you go to http://www.nowebpatents.org/, you can sign up
for the boycott and add your spending to the total. Our goal is to
encourage Amazon.com to put these critical patents into the public domain
by translating our outrage into their financial loss.
PLEASE SPREAD THE WORD by emailing this message to your friends!
Go wild,
John
