Pulse2 Technology and Social Media News » Pierre Omidyar

Google, Twitter, Yahoo!, and Other Tech Company Execs Sign Petition Against SOPA

Amit Chowdhry — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 19:49:35 +0000

Stop Online Piracy Act is a bill that was introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives in October 2011 by Lamar Smith (R-TX). This Act would allow the Department of Justice and copyright holders to seek court orders against websites accused of copyright infringement that would prevent online ad networks and payment facilitators from doing business with those websites. Opponents in this bill believe that this is Internet censorship. Google co-founder Sergey Brin, Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, PayPal co-founder Elon Musk, and Yahoo! co-founder Jerry Yang oppose the bill. Their letter will appear as a paid ad in The New York Times, The Washington Post, and other newspapers.

The timing of this letter coincides with the scheduled committee vote taking place tomorrow with a revised version of the Act. The revision of SOPA will “give the U.S. government the power to censor the Web using techniques similar to those used by China, Malaysia and Iran.” Below is the full letter from the Internet executives:

An Open Letter to Washington
We’ve all had the good fortune to found Internet companies and nonprofits in a regulatory climate that promotes entrepreneurship, innovation, the creation of content and free expression online.
However we’re worried that the PROTECT IP Act and the Stop Online Piracy Act–which started out as well-meaning efforts to control piracy online–will undermine that framework.
These two pieces of legislation threaten to:
* Require web services, like the ones we helped found, to monitor what users link to, or upload. This would have a chilling effect on innovation;
* Deny website owners the right to due process of law;
* Give the U.S. Government the power to censor the web using techniques similar to those used by China, Malaysia and Iran; and
* Undermine security online by changing the basic structure of the Internet.
We urge Congress to think hard before changing the regulation that underpins the Internet. Let’s not deny the next generation of entrepreneurs and founders the same opportunities that we all had.
Marc Andreessen, co-founder of Netscape and Andreessen Horowitz
Sergey Brin, co-founder of Google
Jack Dorsey, co-founder of Twitter and Square
Caterina Fake, co-founder of Flickr and Hunch
David Filo, co-founder of Yahoo!
Reid Hoffman, co-founder of LinkedIn
Arianna Huffington, co-founder of The Huffington Post
Chad Hurley, co-founder of YouTube
Brewster Kahle, founder of the Internet Archive and co-founder of Alexa Internet
Elon Musk, co-founder of PayPal
Craig Newmark, founder of craigslist
Pierre Omidyar, founder of eBay
Biz Stone, co-founder of Obvious and Twitter
Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia and the Wikimedia Foundation
Evan Williams, co-founder of Blogger and Twitter
Jerry Yang, co-founder of Yahoo!

eBay Founder Pierre Omidyar Starting Local News Service In Honolulu

Amit Chowdhry — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 20:25:23 +0000

eBay Inc. founder Pierre Omidyar is starting up a new venture in Honolulu, Hawaii. The venture will focus on issues taking place in Hawaii. Omidyar is partnering with eBay VP Randy Ching on the new project.

“We’re starting something up in our own backyard,” stated Omidyar on his blog. “We are creating a Honolulu-based local news service that will produce original, in-depth reporting and analysis of local issues in Hawaii… We have a lot of work to do before our public launch in early 2010.”

Omidyar is also close to finishing up his Ginx project with Ching. Ginx is expected to be a recommendation website that utilizes Twitter.

Through eBay and other ventures, Omidyar’s net worth is at $5.5 billion.

Pierre Omidyar’s Investment Firm Gives Wikipedia $2 Million Grant

Amit Chowdhry — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 14:47:01 +0000

Omidyar Network, the investment arm of Pierre Omidyar’s wealth has made a $2 million grant. Pierre is the founder of eBay and his personal wealth is roughly $3.6 billion. The Omidyar Network was started in 2004 and there was about $270 million in assets given to the investment firm.

Some of the Internet companies that the Omidyar Network invested in include Digg, Federated Media Publishing, KaBOOM, Seesmic, Linden Lab, and Wikia. Wikia is another company that was founded by the Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales.

Wikipedia receives about 300 million monthly unique visitors and is the 5th most visited website in the world. However Wikipedia runs on donations and does not have any advertising. At the end of last year, about 125,000 donors invested $6.2 million in helping keep Wikipedia alive.

Of that $6.2 million, $3 million was given by the Sloan Foundation and an anonymous friend gave $286,800. As part of the investment, Matt Halprin of Omidyar will be joining the Wikimedia Foundation board of directors. Before working at Omidyar, Halprin was the VP of global trust and safety at eBay.

WTF: Pierre Omidyar Being Sued For Palling Around With Terrorists?

Amit Chowdhry — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 01:56:54 +0000

eBay founder Pierre Omidyar reported on Twitter about a ridiculous lawsuit that is being thrown at him. Omidyar, a billionaire, a start-up investor, and a philanthropist is the least likely person in the world to have anything to do with terrorists.

The lawyer suing Omidyar even own a website called Sueaerosmith.com. Omidyar tweeted that he plans to claim sueomidyar.com before that lawyer tries to get it.

John Picardy, a former special agent with the State Department recently filed a lawsuit against Omidyar for a wrongful termination. Picardy is also suing Omidyar’s wife, mother, and Sky River Management. Sky River Management, a firm in Honolulu handles the security for the Omidyar family. Picardy left his job at the State Department in Australia and joined Sky River at the beginning of 2008.

Picardy’s job only last four days. Sky River fired Picardy because he made a comment that was offensive to two fellow roommates. The comment was “What do you do when Jayson wants to get some face?” Picardy meant “going on a date” and “not having sex”.

Picardy believes that he was fired because Omidyar’s mother questioned his views on the Middle East. Picardy claims he was fired because he found out about the family airplane flying to Syria for meetings with Hamas. Picardy believes the Omidyars fired him “because they feared the reporting to the U.S. government of their activities.” Picardy wants a jury trial and punitive damages.

Omidyar is taking the situation quite lightly as indicated by his tweets. “I guess my chances of becoming President have gone up. Thank you, Sarah Palin!” tweeted Omidyar after writing about being sued for “palling around with terrorists.”

[via NYT]

What Is eBay Founder Pierre Omidyar Up To Now? Ginx.

Amit Chowdhry — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 19:24:09 +0000

Pierre M. Omidyar, the Iranian-American philanthropist and founder/chairman of eBay that is worth about $7.7 billion is now working on a new business. Dan Primack of PEHub found a regulatory filing that lists Pierre as an executive of a company called Ginx. Although the company is still in stealth mode and requests users to provide their Twitter username/password and secret code, the company has raised $2 million according to the filing.

Ginx is believed to be a recommendation website based on Twitter. So if I do an action on the Internet and want to share it within the Ginx community, it will show that pulled website to other Twitter users through Ginx. It is able to show this action through a URL shortening service through Ginx. For an example, go to this website: http://ginx.com/-Bl6.

Omidyar seems to have a keen interest in social media so this type of service is right up his alley. One of the most interesting tweets I’ve read by Omidyar was during the Presidential Debates between Obama and McCain.

[via PEHub]