The FriendsReunited Conspiracy (?) – Part 2 – The Claim

In summary a group of people have been after me for years and have completed a 12-year investigation into the history of FR in an attempt to discredit me.

For background to this story read:

The FriendsReunited Conspiracy (?) – Part 1 - Introduction

http://spankyrant.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/the-friendsreunited-conspiracy-part-1.html

Now to discuss in more detail what they actually claim.

In simple terms, these people allege that we have lied about the setting up of FR – from how we set the site up, the dates when we did so, the ISP we used, to when the first version of the site went live. Their objective is to show that we effectively took the FR idea from them: a developer they used – whom we are supposed to know – is alleged to have been the person who told us about the online school reunion concept before we came up with it.

Background. Julie had the idea for FriendsReunited in 1999. In June 2000, we registered the FriendsReunited URL, and launched the first simple version of the site. This will all be discussed in a later blog.

These people claim to have come up with their similar idea in July 2000 (according to their statement) but didn’t launch until late 2000/early 2001 it appears.

Here’s the thing:

They claim we did not actually launch till late 2000.

They claim that we know the developer they initially engaged to write their site.

They claim that our site idea came directly from their developer.

They claim that we somehow backdated our domain registration, and were in collusion with the first ISP we used (and, it appears, with Nominet too) to falsely backdate our story.

In essence, they claim the whole story of FR from 1999 to early 2001 is a lie.

They claim that since then we have been involved in a massive cover up -nearly everyone associated with FR is in on this.

They allege that we have done nothing to help them in researching their insulting claims, and have continued to lie and deceive over the “cover-up”.

Julie and I, along with dozens of family and friends who worked on FR are extremely proud of what we created and achieved with FR. It helped tens of thousands of people in a positive way and for that we are truly humble. We also worked unbelievably hard, not just since the launch of FR in June 2000, but for many years building up to then.

Over its history we had to deal with many issues, mostly positive but also the negative and in some cases malicious. From threats to being blamed for breakups to boring contractual stuff – all were dealt with. However, in all my working life I have never felt such disgust or anger as I have through dealing with these absurd allegations, over the past 7 years. How these people can devote so much of their life, finances and time in trying to discredit us amazes me. It is a disgrace and all involved should be ashamed of themselves.

For long periods we have ignored these people but when someone continually tries to discredit a whole 18-month period of your life – basically saying we lied about it all – then you can understand why I am now doing this.

I have given them simple, unequivocal proof of the setup of FR. They choose not just to ignore the incontrovertible facts but also to contort them so that those facts are warped into fitting their wild conspiracy theory. And they use some pretty, heavy tactics in doing so.

Well gloves off – in future blogs I will write further about the history of FR and show with embarrassing clarity how deluded these people’s claims are.

But first, coming next – The FriendsReunited Conspiracy (?) – Part 3 – Their Contact

@spankyhurst