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. They allege
that we copied the idea from them through contact with a developer that they
had engaged to write their website and that we lied about our launch and have
been doing so ever since. They have been contacting us on and off for 7 years.
In August we received an email and a 21-page summary of their investigation.
For background
to this story read:
Part 1 -
Introduction
Part 2 – The
Claim
Part 3 – The
Contact
Part 4 – The
Email
Part 5 – The
Document
The main part of
their claim is that we knew the developer that they were going to use for their
own website back in 2000, and that he told us their idea and we went onto copy
it.
After 12 years of
investigation, 120 pages of notes, numerous private investigators, friends,
solicitors, police officers, and many more people and probably hundreds of man-hours,
the proof of our connection with this developer is listed below on the next
page. (Please scroll down)
That’s it
That’s the proof they
have found – nothing – a blank page.
I told them from
first contact that I did not know and had never met this person,. However, like
everything else I was not believed on this. You would have thought by now after
12 years that the lack of evidence was proof enough. Of course you can’t prove
something that didn’t happen, but they now propose to create a website, put up
a 250K reward (jaw drop!) for information and to use social marketing to try and find a link that
doesn’t exist.
It seems so
strange that all their efforts were put into this one act. Why did they not try
and use their resource to try and confirm anything about the history of FR that
is in the public domain.
I am a big
believer in the theory of 6-degrees of separation. Where everyone is connected
to everyone through 6 different people. I believe there are probably many
connections between their developer and me – in fact it should be a lot less
than 6. Think about it – we are both developers and live in the SE of England.
That should be easy to find a spurious link or two. Or so you would think. I
hope they haven’t paid too much to their various private investigators.
However, I would
like to come to the rescue and save a lot of time and money.
When I knew I was
meeting one of these people (lets call him Mr A) earlier this year, I spent
half an hour the night before trying to find Mr A on LinkedIn. It didn’t take
long.
And there down
the right hand side of the screen is LinkedIn’s very own 6-degree style
connection. It had me -> connected to one of my contacts -> connected to
one of Mr A’s contacts -> connected to Mr A and the main person behind all
of this.
A connection in 3
degrees.
And since Mr A
employed their developer back in 2000 when this all started, then he is
connected to the developer.
I found the link.
I printed it out
and showed him the next day. I don’t think he got the irony.
Can I claim my
£250,000 now please.
Coming Next – The
FriendsReunited Conspiracy (?) – Part 7 – The FACTS behind FriendsReunited
@spankyhurst
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