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In 2011, Change.org claimed it was the subject of a [[distributed denial of service]] attack by "Chinese hackers",<ref>{{cite news|last=Branigan|first=Tania|title=Ai Weiwei campaign website 'victim of Chinese hackers'|url=http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2011/apr/20/ai-weiwei-campaign-website-chinese-hackers|work = [[The Guardian]] |date=April 20, 2011}}</ref> and that the alleged attack was apparently related to its petition to the [[government of China|Chinese government]] to release artist [[Ai Weiwei]].<ref>{{cite web|last=Joffe-Walt|first=Benjamin|title=Chinese Hackers Attack Change.org Platform in Reaction to Ai Weiwei Campaign|url=http://blog.change.org/2011/04/chinese-hackers-attack-change-org-platform-in-reaction-to-ai-weiwei-campaign/|publisher=Change.org}}</ref>
In 2011, Change.org claimed it was the subject of a [[distributed denial of service]] attack by "Chinese hackers",<ref>{{cite news|last=Branigan|first=Tania|title=Ai Weiwei campaign website 'victim of Chinese hackers'|url=http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2011/apr/20/ai-weiwei-campaign-website-chinese-hackers|work = [[The Guardian]] |date=April 20, 2011}}</ref> and that the alleged attack was apparently related to its petition to the [[government of China|Chinese government]] to release artist [[Ai Weiwei]].<ref>{{cite web|last=Joffe-Walt|first=Benjamin|title=Chinese Hackers Attack Change.org Platform in Reaction to Ai Weiwei Campaign|url=http://blog.change.org/2011/04/chinese-hackers-attack-change-org-platform-in-reaction-to-ai-weiwei-campaign/|publisher=Change.org}}</ref>

In 2011, there is a proposal about merging the Spanish-speaking counterpart website ''Actuable'' into ''Change.org''. Finally it that took place in 2012 when they approved the voluntary union of ''Actuable'' users into the ''Change.org'' platform.<ref>[http://www.publico.es/ciencias/397493/actuable-se-fusiona-con-change-org-y-crean-la-mayor-plataforma-de-ciberactivismo-online Actuable se fusiona con Change.org y crean la mayor plataforma de ciberactivismo online], Público (España), 21/9/2011]</ref><ref>[http://tecnologia.elpais.com/tecnologia/2011/09/20/actualidad/1316509269_850215.html Change.org adquiere la española Actuable. La plataforma de ciberactivismo de Estados Unidos compra Actuable por una cantidad simbólica, El País, 20/9/2011]</ref>


In 2012, [[Arizona State University]] decided to block access to Change.org in response to a petition created by student Eric Haywood protesting "rising tuition costs at the school". University officials claimed that "Change.org is a spam site" and the blocking was conducted "to protect the use of our limited and valuable network resources for legitimate academic, research, and administrative uses".<ref name=huffpost>{{cite web|url = http://www.huffingtonpost.com/josh-levy/arizona-state-censors-cha_b_1253155.html|title = Arizona State Censors Change.org|author = Levy, Josh | work = [[The Huffington Post]] |date = February 3, 2012}}</ref>
In 2012, [[Arizona State University]] decided to block access to Change.org in response to a petition created by student Eric Haywood protesting "rising tuition costs at the school". University officials claimed that "Change.org is a spam site" and the blocking was conducted "to protect the use of our limited and valuable network resources for legitimate academic, research, and administrative uses".<ref name=huffpost>{{cite web|url = http://www.huffingtonpost.com/josh-levy/arizona-state-censors-cha_b_1253155.html|title = Arizona State Censors Change.org|author = Levy, Josh | work = [[The Huffington Post]] |date = February 3, 2012}}</ref>

Revision as of 09:26, 24 August 2013

change.org
FormationFebruary 7, 2007; 17 years ago (2007-02-07)
HeadquartersUnited States
Ben Rattray
Mark Dimas
Staff
100 (as of February 2012)
Websitechange.org

Change.org is a website operated by the Change.org, Inc., an American for profit and certified B Corporation[1] incorporated in Delaware, whose businesses include hosting sponsored campaigns.

Organizations, including Amnesty International and the Humane Society, pay the site to host their petitions.[2] Its stated mission is to "empower anyone, anywhere to start, join, and win campaigns for social change".[3] In addition, "millions of people sign petitions on Change.org each month on thousands of issues, winning campaigns every day to advance change locally and globally". Popular topics of Change.org petitions are economic and criminal justice, human rights, education, the environment, animals, health, and sustainable food.

History

Change.org was launched on February 7, 2007,[4] by current chief executive Ben Rattray, with the support of founding chief technology officer Mark Dimas and Adam Cheyer.[5] As of February 2012, the site had 100 employees with offices on four continents. By the end of 2012, Rattray stated "he plans to have offices in 20 countries and to operate in several more languages, including Arabic and Chinese."[6] In May 2013, the company announced a $15 million round of investment led by Omidyar Network and said it has 170 staff members in 18 countries.[7]

In 2008, the organization partnered with MySpace to create an index of crowdsourced ideas for implementation by the incoming presidency of Barack Obama,[8] drawing comparisons to similar approaches by change.gov.

In 2010, Change.org helped to inaugurate Blog Action Day.

In 2011, Change.org claimed it was the subject of a distributed denial of service attack by "Chinese hackers",[9] and that the alleged attack was apparently related to its petition to the Chinese government to release artist Ai Weiwei.[10]

In 2011, there is a proposal about merging the Spanish-speaking counterpart website Actuable into Change.org. Finally it that took place in 2012 when they approved the voluntary union of Actuable users into the Change.org platform.[11][12]

In 2012, Arizona State University decided to block access to Change.org in response to a petition created by student Eric Haywood protesting "rising tuition costs at the school". University officials claimed that "Change.org is a spam site" and the blocking was conducted "to protect the use of our limited and valuable network resources for legitimate academic, research, and administrative uses".[13]

In response, Internet Campaign Director Josh Levy of the Free Press, stated that "disabling access to any lawful site violates the spirit and principles of Net Neutrality, chills academic freedom, and possibly rises to the level of a First Amendment violation."[13]

It was reported on April 5, 2012, that Change.org hit 10 million members, and was the fastest-growing social action platform on the web. At that time, they were receiving 500 new petitions per day.[14]

On May 13, 2012, The Guardian, BBC News and other sources reported that Change.org would launch a UK-specific platform for petitions, placing Change.org in competition with 38 Degrees, [15] [16] a British not-for-profit political-activism organization.

Petitions

In the United States

On March 8, 2012, a petition entitled "Prosecute the killer of our son, 17-year-old Trayvon Martin" was posted on Change.org. The petition received over 2.2 million signatures – at that time the largest number of signatures for any campaign in Change.org's history.[17] The petition called for the prosecution of George Zimmerman, a neighborhood watch volunteer, who, on February 26, 2012, shot and killed Trayvon Martin in Sanford, Florida, a suburb of Orlando. Zimmerman, armed with a 9 mm gun, said he was acting in self-defense against the unarmed teenager, and he was set free the night of the killing without being charged. Social media technology (including Change.org's petition) played a pivotal role in spreading awareness about the killing. On April 11, 2012, Zimmerman was arrested and charged with second-degree murder. He stood trial in the months of June and July and was acquitted of all charges on July 13, 2013.

On October 1, 2011, Molly Katchpole, a "22 year old nanny with two jobs" in Washington D.C., started a petition on Change.org "asking Bank of America and their CEO Bryan Moynihan to drop its unexpected new $5/month banking fee" for debit card customers. Less than one month later, 300,000 signatures were collected and resulted in the bank formally announcing to drop the new banking fee. U.S. President Barack Obama signed the petition; U.S. Senator Dick Durbin, the Democratic senator from Illinois, responded to Bank of America and the petition on Twitter; and it prompted the U.S. Congress to "look at legislation for out-of-control banking fees".[18]

In December 2011, a fourth-grade class in Brookline, Massachusetts, launched the "Lorax Petition Project" through Change.org requesting Universal Studios to include more of an environmental message on its website and trailer for its upcoming film, The Lorax, a classic Dr. Seuss children's story. The website and trailer lacked the important message from the book, "to help the environment".[19] The petition collected over 57,000 signatures (including Edward Norton's), and on January 26, 2012, the studio updated the website "with the environmental message the kids had requested".[20]

On February 2, 2012, a petition on Change.org started by Stef Gray, a 23-year-old graduate in New York, received around 110,000 signers (as of February 5, 2012) in response to Sallie Mae, the "nation's largest private student-loan provider", which resulted in the company changing its forbearance fee policy.[21]

In Germany

Also in 2012, Philip Matesanz, a 21-year-old German university student, started a petition to allow third-party recording tools for YouTube. To date,[when?] this petition has garnered approximately 4.3 million signatures, which is now the largest number of signatures in the history of Change.org.[22]

In Spain

In February 2013, over one million people, a figure equivalent to around two percent of the total population of Spain, had signed the petition calling for the entire Spanish government to resign. The call was motivated by an unprecedented corruption scandal involving the majority of key leaders of the party,[clarification needed] including the Spanish prime minister himself.

Business model

The website makes revenue by running advertisements called sponsored petitions for advocacy organizations such as Amnesty International[23] and list-building services to partner organizations.[24]

Criticism

Under certain conditions[25] signatures and other private information including email addresses can be found by search engines. Change.org operates a system for signature hiding, which works only if the user has an account on Change.org, but[26] it does not work if the signature was forged or appears on another site operated by Change.org, PetitionOnline.

There has been debate and criticism[27][28]around the fact that Change.org is a for-profit business despite using the .org domain suffix rather than the commercial .com. The site has been accused of fooling its users and hiding the fact that it is "a for-profit entity that has an economic incentive to get people to sign petitions".

Change.org is being deliberately deceitful through the use of the change.org name. I'd suspect that the average change.org user does not know that Change.org is a for-profit corporation, and that the corporation plans on using the contact information being provided to them to earn revenue.

— Clay Johnson, [28]

Change.org has also been accused of selling the personal data provided by the users to third-party companies that hire its services, gaining money at the expense of the users.[28]

See also

References

  1. ^ "Change.org B Corp listing".
  2. ^ Alter, Jonthan. "For Change.org, a Better World Is Clicks Away". Bloomberg.
  3. ^ "About Change.org". Change.org.
  4. ^ Gonzalez, Nick (February 7, 2007). "Social Networking For Change(.org)". TechCrunch.
  5. ^ Veneziani, Vince (February 7, 2007). "Social Networking For Change(.org)". TechCrunch. Retrieved December 10, 2011.
  6. ^ Kristof, Nicholas (February 4, 2012). "'After Recess - Change the World'". The New York Times.
  7. ^ Empson, Rick (May 21, 2013). "With $15M From Omidyar And 35M+ Users, Change.org Wants To Prove Socially-Minded Startups Can Attract Big Numbers". TechCrunch. Retrieved July 1, 2013.
  8. ^ Stirland, Sarah Lai (November 25, 2008). "Change.org Crowdsources An Agenda For Incoming Administration". Wired.
  9. ^ Branigan, Tania (April 20, 2011). "Ai Weiwei campaign website 'victim of Chinese hackers'". The Guardian.
  10. ^ Joffe-Walt, Benjamin. "Chinese Hackers Attack Change.org Platform in Reaction to Ai Weiwei Campaign". Change.org.
  11. ^ Actuable se fusiona con Change.org y crean la mayor plataforma de ciberactivismo online, Público (España), 21/9/2011]
  12. ^ Change.org adquiere la española Actuable. La plataforma de ciberactivismo de Estados Unidos compra Actuable por una cantidad simbólica, El País, 20/9/2011
  13. ^ a b Levy, Josh (February 3, 2012). "Arizona State Censors Change.org". The Huffington Post.
  14. ^ Lardinois, Frederic (April 5, 2012). "Change.org Hits 10 Million Members, Now The 'Fastest-Growing Social Action Platform On The Web'". TechCrunch.
  15. ^ Topping, Alexandra (May 13, 2012). "Trayvon Martin petition site Change.org comes to UK". The Guardian.
  16. ^ Kelion, Leo (May 14, 2012). "Change.org petition site targets UK campaigners". BBC News.
  17. ^ "Prosecute the killer of our son, 17-year-old Trayvon Martin". Change.org.
  18. ^ "Tell Bank of America: No $5 Debit Card Fees". Change.org.
  19. ^ "'Universal Pictures: Let the Lorax Speak for the Trees!'". Change.org.
  20. ^ Kristof, Nicholas (February 4, 2012). "After Recess - Change the World". The New York Times.
  21. ^ Lewin, Tamar (February 2, 2012). "Sallie Mae to Change Forebearance Fee Policy". The New York Times.
  22. ^ "@Youtube & @GoogleDE : Allow third party recording tools for YouTube #FreedomOnYoutube". change.org.
  23. ^ Mui, Ylan M. "Change.org Emerges as Influential Advocate on Issues from Bullying to Bank Fees". The Washington Post.
  24. ^ Martin, Courtney E. (November 2, 2011). "'You Are the NOW of Now!' The Future of (Online) Feminism". The Nation.
  25. ^ "Privacy Policy | Change.org". Change.org. Retrieved March 19, 2012.
  26. ^ "I want my name off of this petition immediately! : The Change.org Help Desk". Change.org. Retrieved March 19, 2012.
  27. ^ Rathke, Wade (June 20, 2012). "Is Change.org about Real Change or Just Pocket Change?". Chief Organizer Blog. Retrieved July 10, 2012.
  28. ^ a b c "Change Dot Biz". The Information Diet. February 28, 2012. Retrieved July 6, 2012.
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