Myths/Misconceptions Vs Facts

It's safe to say that you're not alone in that. I can appreciate the point you're trying to make, and have myself taken half a step back as it became obvious that repeating or clarifying questions doesn't increase the likelihood of their being answered. But I can't agree with your summary:

It's stretching things to say that this "started out as a reasonable conversation". KVS initiated the thread to promote his product. Questions were raised, questions were avoided and "clever" responses were given in place of answers. The questions became more critical. Facts were posted that made it quite clear that KVS was not being completely truthful. And somewhere along the way one of KVS's supporters jumped in and started throwing barbs at anyone he judged to be an enemy.

This is too kind to KVS. He doesn't just need to be "more transparent" about where and how his program gathers data, he needs to tell the truth. As for KVS and others having "offered their takes": not really. Difficult questions have been dodged and anyone presenting uncomfortable facts has been accused of having a hidden agenda, or worse.

Anyone using the KVS program for certain kinds of search is potentially exposing themselves to a risk of litigation or prosecution. I don't want to exaggerate that risk, but it's greater than zero. KVS shouldn't be allowed to market the program as if it were a legitimate tool.

The post above should be the signal to MP that this thread is long past due for closure. I cannot for the life of me understand why someone has to be transparent to strangers about how he builds his service offering. Gleff was very open and accomodating and even he gets slammed. WOW!!!
That's why barbs appear here.

I don't think my post was in any way disrespectful of Gleff. I disagreed politely with parts of his analysis. If he feels "slammed", I'm sure he'll let me know.

YEP

I think we agree with you Gleff, the problem is that Terry Quinn won't let the conversation die and does anything and everything he can to attack each and every one of us that doesn't fawn over KVS like he does. Either that or he dismisses us "nerds" as not knowing anything.

He didn't stick to what he said in the following post, all the way back on post 89/page 4:

However he wasn't done, and since that post has made some personal, jabbing, and frankly incoherent remarks. Cases in point:

If Terry had actually left the thread when he said he would, this thread would probably been half the length it is as he wouldn't have kept fighting us. We were all presenting the facts from analyzing what the tool was doing and reading website TOS's, to counter that, Terry just started calling us "nerds" because he didn't understand what we were talking about.

No other ConcourseZ service/company needed this type of thread in their forum. Just KVS, and questions are being raised by many people, all saying the same thing. Where there is smoke, there is fire.

In that you have no idea what I was offered, how do you know that to be true?

I wish I could agree, but with the constant denial of things that are demonstrably true I feel that it might be difficult for someone coming in fully unaware to actually get an honest and complete picture of the situation.

I know things

Here you go again....what honest and complete picture...he sells a service for a fee that no one has legally stated is illegal. He has been doing so for 7 years.
FT and MP effectively sell your posts because they get paid by advertisers who probably pay by the hit..is that wrong too?

This debate is becoming increasingly about something else than KVS and is becoming littered with sometimes vitriolic personal attacks. While I usually strongly oppose moderation, in this case I would be happy if one of the admins stepped in and locked this thread.

agreed but don't walk away feeling innocent of any contributions to the situation. We all are implicated.

Do you really have to have last word? I have specifically made sure that I do not mention any names and you have to attack me again? I am now really fed up!!!

Are you suggesting that 1) you are KVS; or, 2) that KVS has shared with you the details of an offer made to me? Or just making stuff up?

And no one has stated it is legal either. The operation absolutely exists in a gray area at best. To suggest otherwise is misleading.

KVS has stated several times that he sells a web browser, not a service. Which is it?

And the complete picture does, in fact, include details of where the data is coming from. The number of people only in the past month here who indicated they were surprised to learn where the data really comes from - and that KVS isn't paying for it in any way - is enough for me to believe that there is absolutely something missing in the "complete" picture of what is going on.

So what? Lots of people do "wrong" for a long time and eventually get caught or stop.

I grant a license to FT and MP to use the content I've created. So do you. Try reading the fine print before making up ridiculous analogies that have no relation to the topic at hand.

In that sense I was granted a license by paying KVS to use his service.....you're pulling straws now. As I've said several times I don't care where the data comes from as long as the provider claims its legal...I don't need to do due diligence for everyone who provides me a service.. at least not in this country

It's certainly an interesting way to put it

There is very little that can be added to the above .

I really love how you mastered the art of taking things out of context and particularly out of context of very old posts...

With all the respect I have for Garry, he has been known to be your supporter. And his message is not meant to support you, but to calm down few people who embarked on peersonal vendetas here...

Never ever a personal vendetta but always candid;I know I'm one of the ones you have targetted.

I'm just trying to cut through the intensely unethical, IMHO, postings of a few people myself. In that we agree to disagree. So "vive la difference" on the first official day of MP.

Except that the data provided does not belong to KVS to license. The tool does, and you are exercising that license, but that's not where this conversation started. This whole license analogy is completely off-target.

And as I've stated several times not everyone feels that way. More to the point, what is the harm in letting people know that the data is not licensed? For the folks that don't care - which you claim is most - it will not make a difference and they will continue to "contribute" to the efforts and license the product.

Why is it so bad to provide full disclosure to help assuage those who might actually care about such things? And if doing so is sufficient to damage business then perhaps that's an indication that the business isn't so legit in the first place.

So why quote it in full and add nothing? You already "liked" the post soon after it appeared.

Tricks like this will not bury the information that has been posted here. That will take honesty, openness and a willingness to take your product and marketing into a new, ungrey phase. Grasp the opportunity! You've got the skills and knowledge -- and it will probably require less effort than this rearguard action.

Other than the three or four purists here there hasn't been an exact groundswell of support for your opinions although I sense that's the purpose of continuing the witch hunt . Using personal opinions to flame someone's business model is, and I repeat, morally and ethically wrong in a public space. If his business practice is illegal, in your mind, then blow the whistle to someone who can do something about it but be prepared for the backlash to that if you're wrong. In my view anonymous flaming like this is just wrong. You call it tranparency but in reality its an attack on the legitimacy of the business model and its owner.

Leaving aside the fact that he hasn't been "flaming" anyone here, Wandering Aramean is hardly "anonymous". KVS Tool also knows the real identities of most others here. Can't be said the other way round, of course.

I am hardly anonymous nor do I purport to be. To the contrary, I actually make myself quite easy to find out there in the real world.

I have no qualms in stating explicitly that I believe the business model is unethical and exploitative.

Ditto my post in the parallel thread

In this case, several people here have brought up the fact that the data sources are almost certainly not legal. There is plenty of circumstantial evidence to support this. I can assure you that were KVS to have an agreement with the data providers he would be telling us of that rather than trying to ignore any and all such questions.You, however, seem to insist on ignoring the obvius truth. I will grant you that the tool is certainly useful. That does nothing to change the source of the data, the legality of KVS using that source, or the fact that data providers remove said sources once they find out that KVS is redistributing and selling their data for his own personal gain.

three or four?
You should see your optometrist...
witch hunt?
As you may have noticed, I personally have provided enough evidence that what KVS does is not seeling us any data because he does not own any, but selling us his knowledge of "free" sites. I have removed details of that evidence after KVS personally requested the removal. Can you tell me why? He had some obscure explanation about protecting those sites from screen scrapping, but later said we should not make it easier to others to find. In this particular case, he is using demo account of one particularly well known travel agency. You seem to be interested in ethics - so my question to you is: is it ethical to sell me an access to something that is publicly and freely available on the Internet? I do not think so.
Anonymous flaming?
I am hardly anonymous. I am using handle that is all over the Internet and I am easily identifiable. How else would Kev be able to send me e-mail to my work account from which I purchased the KVS Tool?
Finaly, to repeat again.
I do use KVS tool and I do find it valuable. It helps me to do things much faster than I would otherwise do using various free websites and 'semi-free' demo accounts. I pay full price and never got any special offer from KVS. Until recently, I thought that KVS has commercial agreement with the sites that are used in KVS Tools (Amadeus, Sabre, Galileo, etc) and that the fee that I pay to KVS is to cover the cost KVS pays for access to these sites. After few people rised the question of screen scraping I did my own investigation - and believe me I am well qualified for that, it is my living. Boy, was I wrong. I did pay KVS for his good googling skills and relativelly good programming skills. That's it. And I am not sure if I am happy to pay annual fee for something like this in the future. After all, with my skills, I can write program like that in relatively short time, particularly if I now know all the details and sites to use... Maybe I should do it. Maybe I should start selling it. What do you recon?


* This post was edited by me, again upon KVS request, and direct citations of his e-mails to me were removed to prevent unethical use of such posts and to avoid breach of MP's T&C.