Earlier today, activist investor Eric Jackson announced the launch of a “Plan B” community on AGORACOM. As stated by Jackson in the press release, the purpose of the community is as follows:
“When I first created a ‘Plan B’ for Yahoo!, I asked for fellow shareholders to offer their input and help edit our ‘Plan B’ and, through ‘pledging’ of shares to our group, to provide us with the ability to speak directly to Yahoo! and the media with one collective voice. I never imagined we would pull together a group with 150 members and a collective 3.2mm Yahoo! shares. We’ve done that, but I believe we’re still scratching the surface of what Activism 2.0 could truly accomplish, in terms of making our voices heard.”
Jackson went on to say, “I would like there to be more of a collective dialog between those within our group and those outside it. I believe the community is smarter than any one person. However, it is difficult to build a community through blog comments, while the amount of spam and noise on Yahoo! Finance message boards make them impractical to exchange ideas. Through AGORACOM, I believe we now have the platform to build a great community of concerned shareholders. This new Yahoo! HUB community will help us all be smarter and exchange ideas that can help shape the future of Yahoo! I encourage you to use it.”
Despite the fact Jackson’s ideas run contrary to those of the Yahoo! board, this is a legitimate source of information and dialogue for Yahoo shareholders.
If so, then why is Yahoo! Finance preventing posting of the “Plan B” URL to the Yahoo! message board? In fact, why has it now blocked posting of any AGORACOM URL (www.agoracom.com ….) to any message board.
Did Yahoo! block access to Carl ICahn’s site over the last several weeks? I don’t believe so. Did they block access to Eric Jackson when he was targeting Motorola?
UPDATE: Eric Jackson advises via Twitter:
@agoracom it’s happened before that I’ve been blocked by $YHOO.
They should not censor legitimate discussions about any stock, incl them
Clearly, Yahoo! is offside here. There is nothing wrong with shareholders discussing how to create better shareholder value.
Agoracom, good job.
Brandon L. Moase
Manager, Investor Communications & Awareness
888 Consulting
http://www.888consulting.com
22-2475 Dobbin Road
Suite 715
Westbank, British Columbia
V4T2E9
Canada