Amway immediately latched onto that payment, labeled him a "disgruntled internet activist" and began villifying him throughout their distributor organizations. In fact, a former Yager employee, in a phone conversation, has described company meetings where the Yagers blamed Proctor & Gamble and Sidney Schwartz for "all of their problems." Amway's suit against P&G alleges that Proctor & Gamble has paid Schwartz to set up and maintain his site, and that site is responsible for most of their problems today.

This is the third time that Schwartz has received a subpoena from Amway Corp. Amway subpoenaed Schwartz in the Proctor & Gamble case, and he provided a lengthy deposition about his relationship with Proctor & Gamble. Not content with that, Amway subpoenaed Schwartz a second time, in the suit of Touchton v. Amway et al. In this instance, they were able to convince a judge to turn over to them the entire contents of Schwartz' computer hard drive.

Amway has since filed its own suit against P&G. Small enough to be apparently just a nuisance suit, asking for only $75,000, this suit is now apparently the springboard for Amway to gather ever more information about its critics. Today's subpoena demands that Schwartz turn over all "documents" (including, "but not limited to any and all papers, documents, correspondence, letters, manuals, computer disks, . . . backup tapes, data otherwise electronically stored, . . . other data, photographs, videos, surveys, drawings, films, schematics, other computer generated information, handwritten or typewritten notes, charts, graphs, publications, diagrams, journals, calendars, diaries, logs, log books, messages, reports, or any other papers or writings or communications or summaries thereof." The "documents" requested include all documents received by Schwartz from P&G or its attorneys; all documents sent by Schwartz to P&G or its attorneys; all documents relating to any communications between Schwartz and P&G for the past four years; all documents pertaining to the Amway: The Untold Story web page and the sources of those documents; all documents relating to discussions between Schwartz and members of two separate, private listserv groups for the past four years; "all documents containing electronic mail communications (or any excerpts thereof) authored or received by [Schwartz] during the last four years in which the word "Amway" is mentioned; all financial dealings between Schwartz and P&G; records of meetings, phone calls or discussions between Schwartz and P&G or Schwartz and any member of the named listservs; "all other documents authored or received by you during the last four years regarding Amway or any Amway distributor"; and a complete "mirror" copy of each of [Schwartz'] disks, tapes or other electronic storage media which contains any of the information requested in the preceding items."

Schwartz is not named as a defendant in the suit, nor has Amway ever named him in any lawsuit. Nor has Amway ever identified anything on Schwartz' website which is defamatory or innacurate. (See the Conspiracy Theory page for an update on this.)

In other words, Amway is going fishing and wants the entire contents of Schwartz' hard drive. Again. . .

And not just Schwartz' hard drive, either. The text of the subpoena received by The Other Side of the Plan's author and by Wilkes are similar.

John Hoagland, the webring manager, has posted the text of his subpoena on his site. His subpoena differs somewhat from Schwartz, although the scope of what Amway hopes to find is just as broad.

Ironically, prior to receiving these subpoenas, none of the subpoenaed site owners except for Schwartz had had any contact with Procter & Gamble or its attorneys.

The question arises, why that site owner and not others? Last year, Amway attempted, unsuccessfully, to shut down Amway Motivational Organizations: The Nightmare Builders. Now it would appear that Amway is resorting to other strategies to silence its critics. There are many other sites out there which are critical of Amway. Why have their owners not received similar subpoenas? Should I be waiting for the process server's knock on my door?

And, another question: as publishers, do not Schwartz and others have a legal right to protect their sources under the First Amendment? Newspaper and magazine journalists are often able to get sensitive information to the public only because they are able to protect the sources for that information. Are internet publishers any different in this respect? I have received hundreds of e-mails. Some of these come from people in extremely vulnerable positions, people who are in some cases literally afraid for their lives. They write to me because they believe I will protect their anonymity.

I believe that, as an author and publisher of a web site, I have an obligation to protect my sources, and constitutional protection to do so. I have received many highly sensitive e-mails from folks in extremely vulnerable positions. Am I going to turn them over to the corporation that they are afraid of? No.

We are not talking about a conspiracy to bomb a public building here, we are talking about a group of people with common concerns and common goals exposing the truth about a corporate entity. If that corporate entity can subvert our rights to free speech, freedom from illegal search and seizure and other constitutional rights, then we have a legal issue of major importance here.

If Amway is attempting, as appears likely, to intimidate Schwartz into shutting down his website again, or to silence any of their other critics, I believe they should re-think that strategy lest it come back to bite them.

Of course, if Amway would just enforce its own rules, we would have nothing to criticize.

UPDATE! JULY 23, 1999/ October 1, 1999

A seventh subpoena was delivered March 1, 1999, to Ken Lowndes. Lowndes was the butt of an attack by Amway last year, when his website critical of the corporation was shut down by the service provider when one of Amway's lawyers wrote a couple of letters objecting to it. Lowndes, who has some long-standing grievances against Amway Corporation, ran an unsuccessful congressional bid in Amway's home district last year in an attempt to gain publicity for his cause.

Later, an eighth subpoena was served on the author of Diana and Joe's Place, a personal story of an Amway experience.

Here's a Subpoena Scorecard (Updated July 23, 1999.):

1. Sidney Schwartz filed a letter of objection. Because Amway is attempting to add both Schwartz and Lowndes as defendants in its Michigan suit against P&G, an Oregon judge ruled that Schwartz does not need to answer this subpoena. In a press release dated April 14, 1999, Amway states:
   
   "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." Schwartz maintains a Web site called "Amway: The Untold Story," which unfairly portrays Amway and its business opportunity through misinformation that is shared with readers and other web site operators. "
   
   Amway, according to its press release, is also attempting to add Ken Lowndes as a defendant, on the grounds that Schwartz' site "promoted" Lowndes' website. (Schwartz' site, before it was closed down on April 26, 1999, contained a single hypertext link to Lowndes' site. It also contained links to Yager's InterNET Services Corp. site, ICCA, Britt Worldwide, and Amway itself.) Now, the fact that Schwartz' suit existed long before P&G ever communicated with him seems to cut no ice with Amway when they're looking for a scapegoat. And, although they have consistently complained that his site is filled with "misinformation," they have never identified any of this misinformation, nor have they ever requested that any of the information on AUS be removed.
   
   A Michigan judge has ruled that Amway is permitted to amend its complaint in this suit, adding Schwartz as a defendant.
   
2. Ashley Wilkes filed a letter of objection. He has placed his computer "on deposit" with his attorney pending the outcome of various motions. On April 22, Wilkes appeared in court to defend himself against Amway's Motion to Compel his compliance with their subpoena. In a decision on April 26, 1999, the Magistrate Judge has denied Amway's motion. Amway requested the judge to overturn his decision, and he again denied Amway's motion.
   
3. On the strength of its new, amended complaint, in July, 1999, Amway again subpoenaed Wilkes' hard drive and other documents. Beaten down by legal bills he could ill afford, Wilkes agreed in September to turn the contents of his hard drive over to Amway, and he closed down his website. His site was, at that point, the longest-running site critical of the Amway Motivational Organizations.
   
4. Dave Midgett filed a letter of objection. He sealed his computer's hard drive and placed it in a safety deposit box pending the outcome of various motions. March 24, 1999, Midgett received another list of "search terms" which is much broader than the original list and includes a laundry list of those with past or pending litigation against Amway. Does Amway think that their delusional P&G/Schwartz conspiracy is behind all of the lawsuits against them? On May 17, a judge ordered Midgett to comply with the subpoena, refusing to hear any oral arguments in the case.
   
5. John Hoagland negotiated a compromise of sorts with Amway's attorneys. They have made a copy of his hard drive, but will not be allowed to examine it until search terms have been agreed on. These terms were agreed on in late March. After the terms were agreed, Amway came back with a demand to search on additional terms. These additional terms included a number of names of people who are involved in litigation with Amway, and the names of several other web site owners, including my own. Hoagland has instructed his attorney to tell Amway to file a motion if they want to amend the search terms further.
   
6. Lowndes represented himself in court in a hearing on his Motion to Quash the subpoena, and Amway's Motion to Preserve Evidence. His motion was denied. He is appealing.
   
7. Additional subpoenas have been delivered to the University of Minnesota, demanding the contents of Wilkes' computer hard drive at work, and MPINet, Hoagland's Internet Service Provider.
   
8. Another subpoena was served on the author of the web site Diana and Joe's Place. This story was posted on the internet, and the author was actively corresponding for a time with Schwartz, Wilkes, and others. She decided to try to put her Amway episode behind her, and announced her intention to take down her website. Rather than losing her public story, which was reaching quite a few people, I volunteered to host it on my site. It resided on The MLM Survivors Homepage for over a year (since late December, 1997), with absolutely no input from its original creator. To the best of my knowledge, she also has never had any contact with P&G.
   When the first rash of subpoenas was served, I contacted her to let her know the situation, and at her request removed her pages from my site. She has complied with the subpoena.

It is becoming ever more obvious that Amway is using the legal process as a front to harass and intimidate critical web site owners.

Read My Opinion of Amway's Vendetta

Read the Orlando Sentinel's Article

This page updated Oct-1-99