Anti Trust on DMOZ

That sounds like 99% of all government and government controlled agencies and programs.

 

I think so too, starting by devaluing links from all the DMOZ clones, which is really what gives DMOZ most of it's inlfuence to start with.

Bull. There are countless examples of people who have played by the rules and still get their faces stomped on for daring to inquire about the status of their submissions after a year or more. Let's see if you still feel that way when you've been around a bit longer and observed the abuses, excesses, and incompetence that characterize DMOZ.

 

Well, DMOZ is a non-profit website so I don't think there's any anti-trust issues involved. Now, the fact that Google which is a profit organization and uses DMOZ is totally different. I think it is possible that there are anti-trust elements there, but I'm no lawyer.

 

I can't say I'm optimistic about an anti-trust suit going very far in this case, but (1) arguably, DMOZ isn't non-profit or not necessarily -- it's a website which could conceivably be used to make money if only from selling advertisng space if it weren't so damned inefficient; and (2) anti-trust legislation isn't about making money per se but about unfair restriction of competition:

One could argue that the relationship between DMOZ and Google meets the criteria for unfair competition. Let's face it, DMOZ isn't the premier directory because of its effiency, customer service, quality, or sunny disposition!

 

If you really want to make trouble for DMOZ, I think a better alternative than law suit will be contacting IRS enforcement division.

Since the editors will have benefits in form of listing of their site for their "volunteer" work this is taxable by IRS since payment according to IRS regulation does not have to be in form of money.
This will also cause problem for AOL since the company will be the employer of these editors and have to pay the tax.

This does not cost you anything and IRS certainly has the power to go head to head with AOL and will be interested in the case since they can get money out of AOL. The best part is that if IRS wins the case and collects damages, you will get 10% of what they get as a reward.

IRS

 

I think the cure might be even worse than the problem. If the IRS is anything like their counterparts in the UK, they probably make DMOZ editors seem reasonable, flexible, understanding people.

 

The UK Inland Revenue are pussycats compared to Customs and Excise. Now you really don't want to tangle with them.

 

That is the whole point. I like to see DMOZ editors try to be rude to them. The tax situation is the same in most countries, you are guilty until proved innocent.

If they think that they should tax the editors and AOL, they will do so and it is up to AOL to prove that they haven't done anything wrong.

 

Interesting take on the whole listings thing... putting an intrinsic value on having a site listed....

Presumably if this applies to the ODP then this would apply to anyone who owned or ran a web directory, yes? And especially anyone who made any sort of direct income from it....

If this worked, it might change the face of internet directories....

What about search engines? If someone owns a search engine and makes money (implictly) off of it, would that be subject to the same scrutiny?

And what about SEO in general? If you can quantify the amount of additional profit a company can make from having their company rank higher in a search result, then presumably that could be taxable too, right?

I'd like to see where this one ends up. Interesting idea.

 

I know. I have had the misfortune of their company in the past. They would happily close down every company in the UK, just to show they could. The Inland Revenue is heading that way too.

 

Having spent close to £4,000 in accountants fees over the past few years having to prove I DIDN'T owe them £28,000+, I don't think I would wish that on anyone.

Mind you, the IR did give me a £1500 refund.

 

It has got nothing to do with search engine, directory or SEO.

I will give you an example, if you decided to do some "volunteer" work at your local grocery store but the owner did not pay you and instead gave you eggs, bread and meat, is this a taxable income?

The answer is YES. Compensation does not need to be monetary to be taxable. This will be a normal employer/employee case where AOL is using the editors services and compensating them in form of listings. The profit from getting listed in high competition categories can be very high.
Therefore, AOL Will be responsible for taxes on such payments.

According to IRS the following should be reported on Independent Contractors

"A Form 1099-MISC is used to report payments made in the course of a trade or business to another person or business who is not an employee. The form is required among other things, when payments of $10 or more in gross royalties or $600 or more in rents or compensation are paid."

Independent Contractor

 

Anyone who posts in this forum and has a signature pointing back to their site is deriving benefit from the forum. So it seems the owner of this forum is now going to be liable for the taxable benefits and PR that the sites get.

 

macdesign,

AFAIK, the owner of this site doesn't ignore your sig and put his own sig in, and still claim with a straight face that this board as an "open" sig policy.

There's a big difference. Taxable income may be viable, but just because something is volunteer doesn't mean it can be discriminatory.

Let me sign up for the volunteer fire dept in addition to running my own bowling alley. My competitors alley catches on fire, but hey... I'm just a volunteer, I'd put my own out, but not yours. There's a million and one analogies you could use.

But google adds a lot of weight to dmoz, and they are for profit. So, it amounts to google supporting a system which is corrupt and not open as it claims to be.

Just my 2 cents... I don't know the law, and I don't think it matters too much in the whole scheme of things, but if someone had thousands they wanted to blow on a lawyer... heh... they might be able to get their site listed even if the editor refuses.

 

The idea that the IRS would tax dmoz editors for their own site listings is somewhat ridiculous.

Even if they could be bothered to concoct some bizarre benefit in kind scheme, the amount of tax potentially recoverable wouldn't come close to the cost of collecting it, and therefore the IRS would almost certainly not bother.

Cheers,

Andy
ODP Editor: andysands

 

I once had a bill posted to me from the UK Inland Revenue for £0.01. The bill came in a first class envelope, with a reply paid 2nd class envelope to return the money. Postage costs alone would have been over £0.50.

In my experience, return on investment means very little to a tax collector.

 

Is it so ridiculous that you had to register, so you could answer it?

The profit for some editors in important categories, can be very high, multiple sites, high income,....

If IRS decides this is a income of employment, the collection will be very simple since they don't need to go after individuals for back taxes, they can take it form AOL which certainly has the money to pay.

The heart of this question is that editors have employee/employer relation with AOL and once IRS decides this, Not only they have to pay the back taxes which can cover all the years that DMOZ has been in existence but also AOL will become responsible for all editor's action and can be sued for every wrongful act committed by editors.

 

Billing is computer automated - hence the silliness.

Tax investigation involves far more manual intervention. The UK Inland Revenue don't even look at stuff with under £50 potential tax payable. (At least according to an ex-housemate who used to work for them).

Exactly that ridiculous.

Yes maybe if:
1) An editor owned a PPC link farm site.
2) Listed it in lots of high level categories.

However - an editor that did that would last approximately 5 minutes after they did so.

How can they take it from AOL exactly? AOL isn't employing editors - it doesn't pay them a salary it therefore isn't required to deduct income tax at source.

AOL isn't making any benefit itself from listed sites, and therefore the tax can't be directly applied.

No the heart is that there is no employee/employer relationship. If there was then editors are the worst paid employees in the universe.

The vast majority of editors that contribute regularly don't even have commercial sites. You do realise that don't you?

The implication that all dmoz editors, particularly the senior ones, are corrupt, is quite frankly offensive!

Regards,

Andy

 

So an editor with their own PPC stuff up is gone? Why don't you give us a list of every site every editor has approved for themselves. Or does dmoz even track that? Heh. You guys speak as if you know what's going on with your site, it's obvious from the stories here that you do not.

Just because someone volunteers to run an AOL/Google sponsored site, does not mean they can push out competition with no consequences. It's like a volunteer organization (like the mob) getting together and setting prices... hehe.

 

They do track that. I can see every edit I made to the directory since the day I joined. I can see every edit made by any editor since day 1. I can see all my affiliations (those web sites I contribute to). I have forums.digitalpoint.com listed as an affiliation since I contribute to this forum. Senior editors can see my declared affiliations. Declared affiliations are optional. The log of every edit you ever make is not. The ability to see every edit to a site is not optional and any editor can see it. The ability to see every edit made by any editor is not optional.

As has been said before, there very well may be corruption in some categories. I just don't see any hint of a trace of it in any of the categories I spend time or any of the categories that my web sites belong. Dmoz, for all its ... well ... dmozness ... seems to have all the tools in place to catch cheaters and the openness for anyone who really wants to do some homework to check it out.