The Freecycle Network

The Freecycle Network (often abbreviated TFN) is a non-profit organization registered in Arizona that organizes a worldwide network of regiving groups, aiming to divert usable goods from landfills. It provides an online registry of worldwide groups, and coordinates the creation of forums for individuals and non-profits to offer and receive free items for reuse or recycling. By 2006, The Freecycle Network extended to over 3700 groups with almost 2.5 million members.

Freecycle is a registered trademark of the Freecycle Network, Inc. in the European Union, CTM Reg. No. 4287553

Background[edit]

The organization was a project of RISE Inc., a nonprofit corporation, to promote waste reduction in Tucson, Arizona, and reduce the need for landfill sites in Arizona's fragile desert landscape. RISE handed it over to the project leader, Deron Beal. On April 2004, it incorporated under Arizona law, although it has not yet achieved 501(c)(3) status. The board of directors is limited to 15 members, although it currently has three: founder Deron Beal (chairperson and treasurer), his wife Jennifer Columbus (vice chairperson) and friend Jolie Sibert (secretary).

Each local group exists as a Yahoo! Groups list run by volunteer moderators with local owners. TFN encourages the formation of new groups, subject to approval by regional New Group Approvers (NGAs). Groups approved by TFN are listed at the official website, can use the name and logo, and are subject to rules enforced by a structure of global and regional Group Outreach Assistants and NGAs. TFN planned to move in early 2006 from Yahoo! Groups to a centralised site, listing "offers" and "wanteds" across the world.

Controversies[edit]

Corporate Sponsorship - In February 2005, Deron Beal accepted TFN's first corporate support of $130,000 from Waste Management, Inc. [1]. This polarized opinion amongst group moderators. Some saw it as a sensible way of raising funds from a company Beal describes as America's "largest recycler", but others saw it as selling out to corporate interests. Further criticism was provoked by a decision to take paid Google ads on the Freecycle web site, contrary to the initial stated principles, and by Beal's green ambassador role for WMI [2].

Use of Funds. Some members have challenged how sponsorship funds have been allocated. The initial goals were to use this for a new website, Beal's salary and lawyers' fees. After the first year, the new web site had not appeared, although $45K had received by Beal in salary, and an unstated sum spent on legal expenses. However, the web site was claimed to be on schedule for Q1 2006.

Trademark. Beal has been criticized for vigorously defending the Freecycle trademark, at the expense of closing down disobedient community groups and imposing precise rules on logos and language for groups. Beal inists this is solely to prevent commercial interests taking the name and establishing an inappropriate freecycle.com. (In fact, Whois shows the current registration for freecycle.com was filed May 29, 2000, long before the current controversy.) A formal trademark opposition [3] was filed in January 2006. FreecycleSunnyvale filed a lawsuit in federal court against The Freecycle Network [4] in January 2006. An injunction was granted against Tim Oey in 2006 for disparaging the Freecycle trademark, but this was later stayed upon appeal. These disputes relate to Freecycle in the US. In the United Kingdom and Europe the Freecycle Network's ownership of the Trademark has been confirmed and is undisputed.

Logo Origin. The Freecycle logo[5] consists of clip art images [6] [7] that are copyrighted by Microsoft and are specifically prohibited from being used in a corporate logo or for commercial purposes [8].

Dismissing dissenters. Freecycle began removing many groups not registered, or subsequently deregistered on TFN's web directory of freecycle groups; The Freecycle Network cites "refusing to comply with its practices and direction" as the reason for this. Group moderators receive cease-and-desist emails and a request made to Yahoo! to close the group account. This has happened to groups with as many as 4,500 active members, for example Baton Rouge, Louisiana [9][10] and Ann Arbor,Michigan [11]. At times, mass deletions of up to 500 groups at one time have been alleged. Starting in North America, these purges extended later in 2005 to Europe where a group TFN alleged to be "rogue" was closed down in Leicestershire. The criteria for action, to quote from a TFN warning e-mail, "trademark-protected Freecycle name and logo, as well as any and all copyrighted texts, graphics, rules, and guidelines, in any part of the group including the title, or its URL". Many of these dissenters have changed their groups' names and continued to operate their own independent groups, many of which are following the FreecycleSunnyvale litigation. In 2006, following a vote of remaining Freecycle moderators on the freecyclemodsquad mailing list it was decided that co-ownership of each Freecycle yahoo group should be assigned to a Freecycle.org address, so it is no longer necessary for TFN to close a group in order to remove dissenting moderators.

External links[edit]