Jason Peterson

Aka 711 aka Flerin Neomaven Flerinson aka NeoVixen.

Controversies

Cybersquatting and Domain sniping

In an article on chicagotribune.com for wich Jason Peterson was obviously interviewed by phone he is refered to as "a former professional poker player and domain name trader".
The website of Jason Peterson's company ActiveIdeas.com Inc says: "Our primary focus is on internal development of our existing domain portfolio"
In fact Jason Peterson via his company ActiveIdeas.com Inc is known for Cybersquatting and Domain sniping and has been found guilty by the WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organization) in 20+ cases: List of all WIPO cases involving Jason Peterson

Example cases:

• Patelco Credit Union v. Activeideas.com, Inc., Case No. D2005-1295
• QVC, Inc. and ER Marks, Inc. v. ActiveIdeas.com, Case No. D2005-1303
  
• Accor v. Jason Peterson, Case No. D2006-0356
• CYBER CURRÍCULUM VITAE, S.L. v. ActiveIdeas.com, Jason Peterson, Case No. D2006-0830
  
• Sanofi-Aventis v. ActiveIdeas.com, Jason Peterson, Case No. D2006-0987
  
• F. Hoffmann-La Roche AG v. ActiveIdeas.com, Jason Peterson, Case No. D2007-1567
  
• Bayerische Motoren Werke AG and John Cooper Garages Limited v. ActiveIdeas.com, Case No. D2008-1717
  

<links to domain sniping issues>.

Commercial orientation and anti-community attitude

Despite striving to showcase a community attitude entropiaforum.com and planetcalypsoforum.com must be considered purely commnercial projects. The original entropiaforum has been bought by Jason Peterson from its original creator Mindbuster in 2006 and its content and user accounts have been sold to First Planet Company in 2010, see Entropiaforum.com#Sale_2010.

Jason Peterson did apply a strict censorship when it came to the discussions of other Entropia Universe community websites to protect his business. He even did not spare himself to appear on other community websites and impose rules on their members what and how to discuss on his websites. <link to post with rules on EP>

In general his approach to community projects has been the following: Either get them on his servers or supress them and lobbying against them.

Abusing forum ownership/administration

There are mulitple documented cases where forum rules imposed on all registered members do not seem to apply to Jason Peterson/711. No matter whether he was/is the owner of the forum or the contracted administrator of an official company owned forum various forum rules are regularly bend in his favour and/or to the disadvantage of other forum members by himself or other moderators of those forums.

Purchase of Divine Vixen Incarnate

multiple avatars with same name

http://archive.today/itZfH

Multiple Entropia Universe Accounts

Jason Peterson has been accused of using multiple Entropia Universe accounts (besides Divine Vixen Incarnate) which is on first glance is in breach with the Entropia Universe EULA.

It should be noted that MindArk does allow for accounts to be bought and sold with their (MindArk's) permission, which is apparently how the Vixen account was transfered. The transfer is rumoured to have taken place at the MindArk headquarters in Gothenborg, where both the seller as well as the receiving party were present, for an undisclosed sum.

However, while selling an account is allowed, it is unclear on whether that would require the buyer to close one of the accounts.

Sale of EntropiaForum

More: Entropiaforum.com

MindArk favoritism

MindArk, the company developing Entropia Universe, to a large extent support the websites owned and administrated by Jason Peterson and at the same time almost completely ignore other websites no matter whether those have more features, are more up-to-date, have a more active user base, have staff achieving more full-time equivalents or to a larger extent feature an "all-universe" approach. The latter point ("all-universe" approach) might be one of the reason for MindArk's efforts since entropiaforum.com does show a rather restricted "all-universe" approach and rather seems to be focussed on Planet Calypso whose majority shareholder is the MindArk subsidiary company AR Universe AB.

After the relaunch of the official Entropia Universe website (www.entropiauniverse.com) in 2011 the frontpage shows a banner link to entropiaforum.com reading "Visit Entropia Forum" while this or similar options do not seem to exist for other community websites or even offical websites of MindArk's "Planet Partners". Additionally the design of the banner link image being consistent with the design of the rest of the websites suggests that it was created by a MindArk employee or contractor paid with money the Entropia Universe players deposited to the game.

Also MindArk are using entropiaforum.com for running competitions actually designed for the whole Entropia Universe that require players to sign-up on a privately owned commercial website with personal data like their email address. The option to be included in such competitions does not seem to exist for other community orientated websites, and again does not even seem to exist for MindArk's Planet Partners.

Wikipedia sockpuppet

Jason Peterson was reported for using sockpuppets to edit wikipedia articles in his favour which is in breach with wikipedia policies.

Links and references

• Article on entropiatrash
• Article on mmosite
• Discussion Thread on mindhive
• http://everything.explained.at/Entropia_Universe/
• Discussion thread at mmorpg.com
• Discussion about Vixen's all time high (said to happen before Vixen's avatar was sold)
• Discussion about 711's purchase of entropiaforum at planetcalypsoforum (formerly entropiaforum)
• Who is 711 thread at Planetcalypsoforum
• 2008 Annual Report that mentions Jason Peterson
• some of Neomaven/711's cyber squatting/porn-related domain sales attempts
• some more of Neomaven/711's cyber squatting/porn domain sales attempts
• even more of Neomaven/711's cyber squatting domain sales attempts (this time focused on celebrity names instead of porn)
• Anti-Cyber Squatting Protection Act
• Forum Discussion in which Neomaven/711 claims to not be a cyber squatter
• Blog entry discussing 711's possible secretive administration of toulan forum