"My belief in the need for this information to be available to the public has not changed. Nor has my belief that Amway is a dangerously unethical and immoral company that has knowingly victimized millions. I also feel, however, that I've done more than my part to bring this information out, and it is now someone else's turn. When AUS was first created, it was the only such site that I knew of. That is no longer the case, and there are now many other Amway Information sites, and also a number of AUS "mirror" sites. The cat is out of the bag, and Amway will never again be able to deceive the public as easily as it has in the past.

"Another factor in my decision is Amway's continuing harassment of me (and now other web site owners as well). Amway has so far served me with three subpoenas, and is now attempting to add me as a defendant in their frivolous lawsuit against Procter & Gamble in Michigan. This despite the fact that Amway has never identified anything on this site that is false or defamatory, and in fact has refused to do so when asked, and has never as much as sent me a letter requesting that I remove or change anything on this site. Amway has always had the opportunity (and certainly the resources) to publicly refute the substantial amount of documented information on this site. They have never done so because they cannot, the facts being what they are. Also, responding to facts with facts in a public forum would mean that Amway and its critics would be on a more or less equal footing, and like any true coward Amway cannot stomach a fight in which it does not have an overwhelming advantage. Amway knows that by instead using the legal system as a bludgeon, it can win without being right."

Amway: The Untold Story, or AUS, was uploaded to the internet during the first week of January, 1996. It began as a compilation of research and material gathered by Schwartz over an period of several years when he served as a section leader in the Compuserve Working From Home forum.

AUS, which included the complete text of legal pleadings in cases involving Amway and high-level distributors, excerpts from doctoral dissertations and competent studies, press releases, price comparisons, information about the once-secret tool business, as well as thousands of letters from distributors and former distributors, has been the target of many attacks by Amway and its distributors.

Schwartz came under fire from Amway after Procter & Gamble filed suit in Utah against Diamond Randy Haugen, Amway and a number of other distributors and corporate executives. Haugen had disseminated to thousands of distributors an Amvox message stating that P&G had ties to Satanism. While Procter's lawyers were researching their case, they found the AUS site and contacted Schwartz. He provided them with some information, and photocopies of documents. For this he was paid an extremely modest consulting fee, and reimbursed for his expenses of photocopying documents. P&G also provided him with copies of publicly available legal documents.

This was all the ammunition that Amway needed to begin a vindictive campaign against Schwartz. "Amway critic is a secret consultant to P&G" they howled. They implied some impropriety between Schwartz and P&G. They subpoenaed Schwartz, ostensibly as part of the Utah suit, and achieved limited access to the contents of his computer hard drive. They posted misleading statements about him on their website under the noble-sounding title "Amway and Free Speech. . ." They began harassing other website owners that AUS linked to.

But Amway -- at least publicly -- refuses to believe that Schwartz formed an opinion based on research. They insist that his site is a front for their competitor, P&G, and that Procter & Gamble provides the information and supports other "negative" sites as well.

Last year, Schwartz, announcing that he did not have the energy or the personal financial resources to continue defending himself against Amway, deleted most of his site. Mirror sites sprang up in locations around the world, practically overnight. After a few months, Schwartz re-opened his site, but many of the mirror sites still exist.

At that time, I asked Schwartz whether his opinions of the Amway business had changed from when he first started doing his research as Compuserve forum section leader. His answer was a resounding 'yes.'

"It only gets worse with time. And the reason for that is that, when I first started doing the research I had not yet had contact with many Amway distributors. And after I began sharing the information, initially on Compuserve and then on my website, I began to be contacted by a lot of current and former distributors. Some were just defending Amway, but a lot of them were not. I started hearing all these stories about what had happened to them, their families, their friends, really horrible stuff. That was really alarming. A lot of them were extremely grateful that I had put up this information because they thought their experience was unique, they didn't realize that a lot of other people had gone through the same thing. So this helped them in that way, that they weren't alone, they weren't stupid, they weren't the only one in Amway who'd quit or failed or whatever. And also, they thought it was important that this information be available to people who were making the decision about whether or not to get involved with Amway. Those stories -- just hearing about the harm done to people -- has worsened my opinion of Amway."

Amway subpoenaed Schwartz' hard drive again last year, as part of the Touchton v. Amway lawsuit. Schwartz, who went into court unrepresented to face four Amway attorneys, lost his plea to have the subpoena quashed. Amway gained extensive access to his hard drive.

Following their access to Schwartz' hard drive, Amway began a concentrated effort to shut down two more critical sites: Amway Motivational Organizations: The Nightmare Builders and a site owned by Ken Lowndes, a belligerently outspoken critic. Amway was able to get Lowndes' site kicked off its GeoCities host, but they failed to convince the University of Minnesota to shut down Nightmare Builders .

Amway decided to resurrect a nuisance suit which had already been thrown out of court in Utah. They filed a complaint against P&G, claiming a conspiracy by P&G to support Schwartz and other "negative" site owners. As part of this suit, filed in their hometown of Grand Rapids, MI, and based on information garnered from Schwartz' hard drive in the Touchton lawsuit, Amway has now subpoenaed six web site owners and several organizations. Amway is trying to substantiate its "conspiracy" theory.

Of all those site owners subpoenaed, Schwartz was the only one to have had contact with P&G.

Amway is now attempting to add Schwartz as a defendant in their Michigan suit against Procter & Gamble. According to their press release, "The amendment to an existing lawsuit against Procter & Gamble charges that the consumer products giant provided support to Oregon resident Sidney Schwartz, creator of a Web site intended 'to damage or destroy Amway's business using the Internet.' "

Amway has publicly hurled accusations at Schwartz and other site owners repeatedly, accusing them of posting slander, libel, misinformation, and lies. But when asked to identify such documents, they have been strangely silent. Why? Because no such misinformation exists.

What is this damaging information designed to destroy Amway's business? Simply a truthful accounting of the behavior of Amway's own distributors, executives and owners. So who is doing all the damage? But it's easier to point the finger at the "critic" than it is to clean their own house.

In any case, Sidney Schwartz is understandably tired. He's been researching Amway now for more than ten years. He's been presenting well reasoned and factual information, and been attacked, besmirched, and vilified for his pains. His attempts to make public information which had previously been kept under wraps has cost him a lot of money.

In an interview with me last year, Schwartz explained:

"I don't have any dispute with Amway. I didn't lose any money, they didn't ruin my family, nothing like that. I have no personal agenda to pursue, no ax to grind as I'm often accused of. This is a common response I get from Amway distributors, 'you must hate Amway, or have an ax to grind. You failed, and now you're trying to get even with them,' this sort of thing. None of that's the case. I just don't like them. And I don't like them based on the research I've done. I did research, and based on that research I formed an opinion."

Many distributors and former distributors are grateful to Schwartz for the information he provided. Amway points to this as "evidence" that he is out to destroy their business. I'm sure they'll be cheering -- at least for a while -- now that his site is gone. Unfortunately for Amway, their Pandora's box has been opened, and they'll never get it closed again.

Thank you, Sidney!

This page updated Jul-15-99