The Evil Diaries: “I’ll be back on it”

Ben Edelman, an associate professor at Harvard where he lectures on the MBA course, stayed with me and my wife over the weekend, preparatory to talking in public on Adware Shenanigans in 2015. It was really interesting – clearly there is massive fraud taking place. The chief villain in quoted UK is blinkx (BLNX). Seemingly, the US authorities will not take action against these scum. And so it goes on.

It is truly astonishing how supine the authorities are both here and in the USA. It can’t be a conspiracy to fail. It has to be a general ignorance.

Ben offers his thoughts on www.benedelman.org. He is terrifically clever and has a modest manner. Although he is known as The Sheriff of the Internet he is in fact a lawyer by profession and he outlined to me an extraordinary case he is bringing as a class action against Facebook. He became informed that under age minors in the USA who cannot enter into contract, save for essentials such as food, were sending sums of money to Facebook so to participate in computerised games involving virtual characters. Ben has got a US judge to agree that there is the basis of a class action. He is after $500m or so and should earn a walloping fee.

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Gate Ventures (GATE) is still quoted. Goodness knows why. Surely the FCA can do something at last. Truly they are pathetically inert. Gate now stands at 187p. They are worth 10p at top whack. Don’t forget that if this were a real company it could have a go at issuing fresh stock. Of course it can’t have a go since were it to do so the market would instantly turn turtle.

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Finally, I have not yet understood Telecom Plus (TEP). But I have heard sufficient vehemence expressed to persuade me that this is a stonking short at 800p. This is not a respectable argument intellectually speaking. But it has to do pro tem. I’ll be back on it.