Hollering into Cyberspace

Recently, cyber house-pet owners got miffed enough at Care2.com for allowing just anyone to vote down their pets in an online beauty contest that they started an Internet petition at the Petition Site. More than 300 people signed the petition to pressure the company to lighten up on the animals.

"We, the undersigned, are unhappy with the number rating system for the pretty pets and wish to see a different and more friendly system in place," the petition stated. Its author suggested that troublemakers were abusing the site's public accessibility to vote down people's pets.

"Some people rate all pets a 1-and-lower score intentionally for their amusement. This has created conflict and more anger," complained petition author Kim Grimes in a related chatroom posting earlier this year. But despite the petition's popularity, Care2 hasn't changed its rating system.

Color of Money

Meet the Petition Site's mastermind, the very personable Randy Paynter. In a photo on his office wall, Paynter sticks out like any American tourist would, posing fully dressed with a bunch of nearly naked fellas from New Guinea. The picture commemorates the trip he took to Indonesia a few years back. He went there with the mission to find a piece of the natural world that he could turn profitable.

Paynter's nebulous grail included anything he could commercially manipulate without blatantly exploiting the indigenous people or the land, he said. He didn't find it there.

Following his trip, Paynter, a clean-cut, Boy Scout-looking man with strikingly blue eyes, went to business school. He emerged wielding a better idea of where to find his cash cow. Right here.

The U.S. of A., Paynter found, is rich with people who want to feel like they're chipping in for the environment and other good stuff. They just don't know how to take that first altruistic step.

With the Petition Site, Paynter's for-profit petition host service, he makes activism easy.

The Petition Site allows individuals and groups to set up petitions -- existing topics include stopping goat vivisection (a petition that confusingly targets the National Anti-Vivisection Society) and saving Taiwan's abandoned dogs. These petitions are different from the chain-letter ones emailed directly to people. After enough people stumble across a petition, and the campaign reaches its signature goal, the petition is sent to its target by either its sponsor or Paynter's crew, he says. The Petition Site can fax, mail or email it. The company can send the signed petition all at once or in spurts.

The Petition Site isn't unique. i-charity www.i-charity.net and e.thePeople are just a couple of the like sites also readily available on the Web. These sites' online petitions often target Congress or a department within government complaining about or advising on environmental and other sorts of issues. Some target individuals or businesses.

Internet surfers looking for Sea World, for example, might stumble upon the petition that reads, "Sea World needs larger killer whale tank." It only takes a few seconds to enter a name, email address, city and state, and click on "Add my signature!" And you get a nice note back thanking you "for signing: Sea World Needs Larger Killer Whale Tank." A few taps and clicks, and bam!, you've signed a petition. You're an activist.

The petition sites brag about their ability to revolutionize activism. (It's true that activism has needed a boost over the last several years, according to a 1995 article published by the American Political Science Association reporting a huge three-decade decline in political participation.) The site i-charity, for instance, claims to be "the best tool on the Internet" because it "appeals to people's psychology and allows you to collect more signatures than you would collect otherwise."

Green Lite

Signing and posting petitions on Paynter's site is free. The company makes its money from nonprofit do-gooder groups who hire it to advertise their campaigns to the 2 million people on its mailing list.

On-clickers have the option of "option in" to receive a host of newsletters from these agencies. Sometimes, the newsletter is already checked, so a petition signer would actually have to uncheck it or "opt out" to avoid receiving it. Additional revenue comes from selling enviro-friendly products and providing the occasional tech support on the side. Paynter declined to say how much the company takes in. He said, with 22 employees, his company breaks even.