That is a valid point. However, I checked the release in question from Golden Apple (and some they ran in the past) and they all look legit. The part of the March 17, 2006 release from Golden Apple that was copied into this crazy e-mail referred to planning a seismic program at their Quebec drill site. Hardly a fishy tale. A week before, on March 10th, Golden Apple ran a release stating that they are aware of spam and that they had assured their stockholders that they had not authorized or paid for any ticker spamming or e-mail campaigns. I've seen this a lot with OTC companies lately.... a lot of releases issued to ward off these people shooting off these e-mails.
Granted, the smaller wires (if you look at their sites) run a lot of investment opinion pieces and questionable items. PRN and BW (both of whom I've worked with) are very stringent about what they release and what they won't allow.
I think this is an example of the wire's not being at fault...someone took a perfectly good, legit release and made it into anything but.
Thanks for the forum. I like what you write.
While I don't disagree that these wire services are being exploited for nefarious gain, I just wonder if they have any kind of standard for what is acceptable. (Even VNR firms have some editorial integrity.)
Also, are they cognizant that their releases are being (re)used as spam?
As far as whether these are "perfectly good press releases," please take another read.
Anyway, John, thanks for your comments.
Always a great read. However, I do have a few thoughts on your recent posts about Market Wire and PR Newswire.
Are these wire services really at fault here? It looks to me like the author of the fraudulent e-mails copied perfectly good press releases into their own e-mails. That's not necessarily done with the knowledge of the wires. If anything, these wires should go after those that send the e-mails for reusing their copy without permission. I don't think that MW, PRN, PZ, BW, etc. are in cahoots with these thiefs.
Thank you!
Commenting by HaloScan
