Thank you for adding comedic value to this episode. There was no “unintentional mis-representation” here. There was:

a) An accurate representation of my experience on MOLI.com, which on a site that assures me as its key market differentiator that I can “control my privacy” resulted in two friend requests from people I do not know offering me, respectively, environmental products and an “EZmoney” opportunity.

Given the volume of traffic from your company to my site today, I’m fairly confident you’ve seen the screen capture that verifies these “friend” requests. If not, you certainly know where to find them.

b) A completely intentional mis-representation from Daniel DeFiore, not a distant “associate” but your Director of Customer Service. Dan posted as Hawk5721 on several sites, pretending to be an average user who “signed up” for MOLI and thought it was “awesome” and great option for people who were “frustrated with Facebook” - the last instance of astroturfing taking place on TechCrunch, in fact. At no point did he disclose that his “signing up” was signing an employment contract with your company.

Astroturfing is an egregious and deceptive practice that has had serious ramifications for those who have engaged in it. I assume you are internet savvy enough to Google “GiveWell+astroturfing” and “shelfari+astroturfing”.

I suggest you do so, and then cease trying to spin this under a rug of “misunderstanding”. This was not a misunderstanding, it was deception.

And, I sincerely hope, the very definition of gross misconduct at MOLI.com.

“A post on an Irish blog that unintentionally mis-represented how privacy works on MOLI.” ??

You brag all over your front page about how privacy matters. She joins the site. She gets multiple spam messages instantly. That’s the truth, not any kind of misrepresentation.

Your pool boy didn’t make an honest mistake by “not identifying himself appropriately”. He slimed his way all over the web over an extended period, engaging in a calculated and deliberate deception.

He lied, over and over again, and you’re now telling us he didn’t. Act like a grown-up for once, and apologise properly.

In response to this article, I want to extend my personal apology to all your readers for our associate not identifying themselves appropriately as being from our company when they responded to a post on an Irish blog that unintentionally mis-represented how privacy works on MOLI. As a result, we have issued a policy to all of our associates worldwide to ensure that they include their name and title in all posts about company information going forward to ensure absolute transparency.

I would also like to clarify that MOLI’s office in Dublin is our European Regional headquarters with only a few people at this point in time, and not 60 as your article implies. Our company ‘s global headquarters are actually based in southern Florida were the majority of our 55 associates are based.

Should you be interested, I’d be more than happy to give you a personal tour of MOLI and show you how are privacy features work and answer any other questions you may have.

With Best Regards,
Judy

It doesn’t seem to like Safari very much, as the flash ‘type these words’ element to stop spam registrations doesn’t display at all - but works fine in Firefox.

I think with a title strapline like “Control your Privacy” they are definitely heading for a fall, but it looks good so far - stylish and customisable enough for ‘yoof’, slick enough for business…

The “enthusiastic employee” was in fact an astroturfer - a MOLI employee who did not reveal himself as such when posting in my comments to tell me how “awesome” Moli is and that by the way, the spam I was getting wasn’t really spam.

After a bit of digging, guess what? Said employee is Moli.com’s Director of Customer Service. Meet Daniel DiFiore, “Hawk5721″ and Lawn Boy for Moli.

There’s SO much desire for a breakthrough, nay a series of breakthrough Irish companies, the whole countries like a pressure cooker about to explode. Yet another American company making use of Irish government initiatives simply compounds the frustration that there aren’t enough Irish people out there taking the chances that seriously need to be jumped on.