Reading about the trial in France (Marseilles) of 7 followers of Dianetics (scientology) for fraud, I looked up some information on scientology on the Internet.
I read on a web page the statement by a former scientologist that the scientology organization is the owner of Earthlink, the Internet Service Provider. Could anyone help me find out the truth about this statement?
Jacques Kilchoer
Workers of the world, unite! You have nothing to lose but your chains.
Earthlink is the ISP service offered by the telecommunications corporation known as Sprint.
As far as I’m aware Sprint is a publicly-held company, and is not owned by just a single person.
Contestant #3
Actually, the largest owner is that Krypto-Scientologic-Military-Industrial-Illuminati Organization known as (drumroll, please)
…Sprint
From ELNK’s Proxy Statement at the SEC Website. (Oh, did I mention that it’s a public company?)
Livin’ on Tums, Vitamin E and Rogaine
Or, you could have just listened to C#3, who got ahead of me, postwise. Sorry.
Actually, Earthlink founder Sky Dayton (the top stockholder on the list) is a Scientologist, which is probably where the information came from.
“You can’t run away forever; but there’s nothing wrong with getting a good head start.” — Jim Steinman
Dennis Matheson — Dennis@mountaindiver.com
Hike, Dive, Ski, Climb — www.mountaindiver.com
Ask them yourself:
Registrant:
EarthLink Network, Inc. (EARTHLINK2-DOM)
3100 New York Drive
PASADENA, CA 91107
Domain Name: EARTHLINK.COM
Administrative Contact:
EarthLink Network, Domain Admin. (ELN-DA) hostmaster@EARTHLINK.NET
626-296-2400
Fax- 626-296-5113
Technical Contact, Zone Contact:
Earthlink Network, Domain Administrator (DAE4) dns-admin@EARTHLINK.NET
626-296-2400 (FAX) 626-296-5113
Billing Contact:
EarthLink Network, Domain Admin. (ELN-DA) hostmaster@EARTHLINK.NET
626-296-2400
Fax- 626-296-5113
Record last updated on 03-Nov-98.
Record created on 06-Dec-94.
Database last updated on 21-Sep-99 14:40:22 EDT.
Domain servers in listed order:
NS1.EARTHLINK.NET 207.217.126.41
NS2.EARTHLINK.NET 207.217.77.42
NS3.EARTHLINK.NET 209.179.179.19
Yer pal,
Satan
Thank you to everyone who replied. I didn’t think of looking up the SEC website because I’m not a stock buyer.
As far as asking them personally (as suggested by Satan), I didn’t think that any company owned by the scientology organization would admit their affiliation to a casual enquirer, since that might be bad for business.
Jacques Kilchoer
Workers of the world, unite! You have nothing to lose but your chains.
Well, for whatever it’s worth, they announced this morning that they’re merging with Mindspring, which was started by born-again Christians.
Should make for some fun board meetings.
Livin’ on Tums, Vitamin E and Rogaine
I went to great lengths last night to cut/paste and then list all the larger owners of Earthlink based on manhattan’s post…but last night, I couldn’t post a response. All I’m suggesting is that you take another look at manhattan’s post AND the numbers. The largest shareholder in Earthlink is NOT Sprint(who holds an equal number of shares as Esrey and Laurer)…it’s "all directors and executive officers as a group-48.8%.
This is what happens when one looks at a pie chart but forgets to check out the numbers.
“There will always be somebody who’s never read a book who’ll know twice what you know.” - D.Duchovny
[flame]
You worthless piece of garbage, I’ve been a securities analyst for 10 years. You’re going to correct my read of a simple ownership disclosure chart? I don’t think so, Mr. “I read the text.” I read these charts in my sleep, for Chrissake. Shit, I’ve written these charts.
You are the reason the SEC is making companies dumb down public filings to the point that there’s no information in them. Read the goddamn footnotes.
Since you’re obviously too stupid to understand a simple chart and its explanatory text, I’ll clue you in.
The “all directors and executive officers as a group” means, uh, “all directors and executive officers as a group.” That includes Messrs. Esrey and Lauer, who are Sprint’s nominees to the Board of Directors. Footnotes 11, 12, and 18 talk about the fact that while Sprint owns the shares, Messrs. Esrey and Lauer are deemed to be beneficial owners under the relevant SEC disclosure rules. They don’t “hold an equal number of shares,” the “hold” the same shares! Most people, seeing that the percentages add up to more than 100, would have done a cursory investigation before accusing me of not reading the numbers. In case you care, the numbers are also skewed because of options not yet exercised, the fact that Sprint owns both common shares and convertible preferred not yet converted into common, and some other things that you are obviously too thick to get.
Read the text, you hump!
Now slink back to e-trade and pay $250/share for some piece of crap internet stock
[/flame]
Sheesh!
manhattan, I assume your job forbids you working with the public. If it doesn’t, it should. I’m also assuming you were rejected in any type of civil service work. If you’ve never applied, don’t. There are nicer ways of pointing out errors, and I’m still not sure I made one. Doesn’t matter, however, because whenever I see your post somewhere, I’ll choose to ignore it.
“There will always be somebody who’s never read a book who’ll know twice what you know.” - D.Duchovny
ahem
Guys, I work for Mindspring. We found out about the merger with Earthlink a couple of days ago. I’m actually pretty excited. There won’t be any layoffs, and we’ll be big enough to take on AOL. Woohoo!
We’ve received several emails from Charles Brewer (CEO) to tell us what’s going on. He’s also addressed a couple of rumors - one of which was “they’re going to make us become Scientologists!”. The answer was, of course, “no, please don’t be silly”.
I don’t know if Charles is born-again, but I will say that his company has been not just tolerant but open and active towards all religions/races/nationalities/sexes/etcetera.
This is the first place I’ve worked where I’ve felt comfortable with my coworkers knowing I’m a Pagan. I haven’t asked for a Solstice off or anything, but I’m sure they’d give it to me.
sigh
Please make that ". . . open and active in accepting all religions . . . "
Mazey:
You choose to ignore him because he pointed out your error? Or is it because he was a little bit mean spirited. I would be mean spirited as well, if someone told me I didn’t know how to read a pie chart.
C’mon, lighten up, and next time you tell someone they don’t know what they are talking about, be prepared to deal with the consequences if you are wrong.
If you read the foot notes he pointed out, you would realize you were wrong. The fifteen people mentioned in “All directors and executive officers as a group” are the fifteen people listed above (minus, Esey and Lauer, who are only listed as both owning Sprint’s shares).
Anyway.
phouka:
I was surpised to hear how big the merged company is going to be. Any word on what it is going to be called?
They will have the size to challenge AOL, but, they have some work to catch up to the name recognition. For good, or ill, AOL is well known. I think Mindspring was doing a good job of getting their name out there, I have heard 3 or 4 radio broadcasters who were giving huge plugs to the company.
This shall be interesting.
pat
They’re going to be called EarthLink. Or, at least, that’s what EarthLink told me in their email announcement.
“It’s bacon!!”
phouka, priccair, and Kat: Good luck taking on the monsters at AOL. As an investor in some of your infrastructure providers (can’t say which, obviously), I’m definitely in your corner. I hope you realize that my comment about the board meetings was just a lighthearted send-up of people who tend to take Scientology (and born-again Christianity, for that matter) way too seriously when talking about secular matters such as internet access.
Mazey: Your first paragraph warranted a correction. Your second paragraph earned you a flame. You got one. Life’s long. Move on.
As a peace offering, I’ll fess up that I should have included a link to the entire proxy, but I forgot.
Livin’ on Tums, Vitamin E and Rogaine