I am totally pissed and infuriated and I don’t know who I’m madder at – Wellsphere or myself. Wellsphere is a “health community” site for health bloggers to gather and to supposedly help others as patient experts and medical experts. This was the drawing card for me – I thought I could help others with CFS & Fibromyalgia by joining the site. But what I found out was that it was just a ploy to steal my site content in total. Other sites I have joined that are similar to Wellsphere will only take about a paragraph of your written blog posts and will then link to your site so that the reader can be directed to my website to read the remaining post content. Wellsphere copies EVERY SINGLE WORD OF MY CONTENT ON EVERY POST I HAVE WRITTEN.
What really sent me boiling was when I received an email from Wellsphere saying that they had been bought out by HealthCentral.com for an undisclosed amount that is estimated to be in the millions from various posts Ihave read across the Internet.Guess what all ofus hard-working bloggers got from this? ABSOLUTELY NOTHING! They basically have access to all of our hard work and sold it to another company.
While I am normallyvery thorough in reading the fine print,I thought that only a minor portion of each post would be published.
There are many posts across the Internet regarding how us health bloggers were scammed and I have posted as manylinks below as I could find.Why am I posting this on here? Because it will show up on Wellsphere, naturally! :)I have sent emails tohave my account there removed and Ihave also changed my profile name to” No More Stealing My Content, Wellsphere!”I will never be fooled into anything like this again.
UPDATE: I went onto Wellsphere this morning to see if my account had been deleted yet and it had. A lot of people are furious over this whole mess. Here is the email I received from Geoff Rutledge. From what I have read elsewhere online, it is the same form letter that he has used for others who have asked to have their RSS feeds and profiles deleted.
Hi Sandy,
I wanted to let you know that we have deleted your profile and posts on Wellsphere from your blog at fightingfatigue.org/.
I wondered if you might like to connect with me personally, perhaps with a chat by phone. Feel free to call me on my cell, xxx-xxx-xxxx, or send me your number and a time, and I’ll be happy to call you.
Cheers, Geoff
How the Health Blogosphere Was Scammed
Wellsphere/Health Central Press Release
Health bloggers bite back as Wellsphere sells on posts provided for free
Wellsphere: Use the Content of My Blog for Free? (I Don’t Think So …)
My Wellsphere saga and the recent acquisition
Sandy, thanks so very much for posting this. I was contacted by Wellsphere a couple of weeks ago (now I realize that though it came in the name of one of the founders, it must have been simply a form letter) and I am so glad that I didn’t have time to respond. Sounds really hideous and deceptive. It wouldn’t be a bad idea to write more about this and tweet about it on twitter just to get the blogosphere really aware of what has happened. If enough bloggers find out and do what you’ve done, some good can come out of it. I’ve dealt with content thieves before and I hate them with a passion. Your words, which are expressions of your thoughts and ideas, are your own. And those who attempt to steal them and profit from them are true lowlifes.
Wow!
The same has happened to me!
Received the e-mail and just found out they only removed my profile.
I have already written 3 posts on this absurd.
I don’t know it it’s worthy to write another.
Wellsphere is the devil. They never got any of my content. I never gave permission to them but I was registered on their site briefly. I asked to be removed which they, of course, ignored. Dr. Geoff played little mind games via email. Anyway, I deleted my own profile! It took awhile to do because there is no feature there to delete your own profile there. I blanked out all my fields and saved changes but certain fields kept re-populating. So, I faked those fields out. For example, I put 55555 for my zip code and stuff like that. I put zzz@zzz.net for my address. By saving it with these bogus fields and by removing my headshot, I was able to get ALL of my info off that wretched site! Finally, AFTER I had saved the profile looking so awful, then they deleted it. If you Google them, you’ll find some scary stuff. I didn’t read all the links above because my blood pressure can’t take it. All I know is that Wellsphere is the devil to me. Oh, and their site had porn links on it too. Yup. I was “researching” them after getting Dr. Geoff’s “flattery letter” (the one where he fawns over people’s writing and asks them to be a featured writer on WS). Long story short, I came across a webpage of Wellsphere’s that had health stuff on part of the page and porn links off of the same page! I was so upset because this was when my profile was still on their site. Wellsphere (Dr. Geoff) wouldn’t delete my profile so I figured out how to delete it myself. Wellsphere is the devil.
Jeanne
i was browsing the web,when i came across a medical question i had asked as a visitor nearly a year ago,i most certainly would not have asked the question if i thought for a minute it was going to be publicised,but i in the meantime joined facebook connect and thats where wellsphere got my information,without my knowledge or consent,my name,my facebook profile photo(which keepschanging on their site as i update it,my age and my medical condition appears all the time with the help of facebook)i have contacted them on numerous occasions,but with the contempt id expect from them they have not answered me.Imagine a health web behaving like this,i would not put them in the same bracket as the lowest of the low..THEY ARE LOWER….and this is not written by a disgruntled teenager,its written by a gran..
i could not say enough negative things about wWellsphere and Health central,and their horrible questionable ways of conducting business on the web,by stealing visitors information,and publicising it in order to grab an audience for the dollar,but your greed and dishonesty will catch up,there are other health sites that have a few ethics and people will cop on and find them,its hard to tolerate a business snake..
I wrote a small blog about Ativan and anxiety. I am disgusted that it like the others was misused, and the company got money from the bloggers entries. Can’t they call on the Feds to go after this terrible company?