PetitionOnline was the first widely known

Internet petition An online petition (or Internet petition, or e-petition) is a form of petition which is signed online, usually through a form on a website. Visitors to the online petition sign the petition by adding their details such as name and email address. T ...

service that allowed users to create and sign petitions. It went live in 1999, was acquired by Change.org in 2011 and shut down in 2014.

History

It was launched and trademarked in 1999 by Artifice, Inc., a private

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software Software consists of computer programs that instruct the Execution (computing), execution of a computer. Software also includes design documents and specifications. The history of software is closely tied to the development of digital comput ...

company launched and led by Kevin Michael Matthews, a professor at the

University of Oregon The University of Oregon (UO, U of O or Oregon) is a Public university, public research university in Eugene, Oregon, United States. Founded in 1876, the university is organized into nine colleges and schools and offers 420 undergraduate and gra ...

during the 1990s. By the end of February 2000, Matthews had included and trademarked the site's slogan: "This is the marketplace of free ideas". In 2011, the service was acquired by Change.org. It underwent a

design A design is the concept or proposal for an object, process, or system. The word ''design'' refers to something that is or has been intentionally created by a thinking agent, and is sometimes used to refer to the inherent nature of something ...

change on October 30, 2011. On September 30, 2014, PetitionOnline shut down citing increased costs of

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and

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Functioning

A petition that gathered a required number of signatures could be delivered by its creator to its intended recipient, usually by

e-mail Electronic mail (usually shortened to email; alternatively hyphenated e-mail) is a method of transmitting and receiving Digital media, digital messages using electronics, electronic devices over a computer network. It was conceived in the ...

. According to the site itself, as of October 29, 2011 it had collected over 93 million signatures. By October 2000, the petitions were grouped into eight thematic categories, four of which were explicitly political: "Politics and Government – USA", "Politics and Government – International", "Politics and Government – State", "Politics and Government – Local", "Entertainment and Media", "Environment", "Religion", and "Technology & Business".

In the news

Some of the site's petitions received outside attention for the issues they have stood for. The site claimed that its first official response to a hosted petition was from the "Dissatisfied Web TV Consumer Petition", in which Dennis Reno, senior director of Web TV customer service, responded to the claims of low-quality service. In January 2002,

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wrote a formal apology to the National Association of Muslim Women, which posted the "Petition to Correct the Negative Portrayal of Muslim Women in CNN Program Coverage" on the PetitionOnline site in December 2001, over perceived offensive comments made by Leon Harris during the '' TalkBack Live'' program. Later that year, the ''

New York Post The ''New York Post'' (''NY Post'') is an American Conservatism in the United States, conservative daily Tabloid (newspaper format), tabloid newspaper published in New York City. The ''Post'' also operates three online sites: NYPost. ...

'' promoted a PetitionOnline-hosted petition asking the ABC television network to keep country singer

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in its 2002

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special over the controversy regarding Keith's song "The Angry American". In 2004, the petition " iBook Logic Board Failure" was part of the coverage over a threatened lawsuit against

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over defective iBook laptops. In 2005, the petition "Support for Nathan Warmack's Right to Wear his Kilt" received attention for the issue of the mentioned high school student's right to wear a

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to a school dance in Jackson High School in Jackson, Missouri. In 2007, the petition "Filipino Americans demand for apology from ABC and Desperate Housewives" received media attention after the American television series ''Desperate Housewives'' included a line said to be bigoted against Filipinos. Other claims of success through hosted

online petition An online petition (or Internet petition, or e-petition) is a form of petition which is signed online, usually through a form on a website. Visitors to the online petition sign the petition by adding their details such as name and email address. T ...

s include the introduction of Sci-Fi Channel Australia and the stopping of the possible closure of the San Francisco Japantown.

Criticism

Some of the petitions hosted on the site have cause the credibility of the site to be questioned. One petition, titled "Let's Save America - Ban

Anime is a Traditional animation, hand-drawn and computer animation, computer-generated animation originating from Japan. Outside Japan and in English, ''anime'' refers specifically to animation produced in Japan. However, , in Japan and in Ja ...

Now!" is an example of a hoax petition that was easily created on PetitionOnline, intended to demonstrate the unmonitored oversight of petitions on the site.

References

Bibliography

* {{citation , last=Ronzhyn , first=Alexander , title=The Analysis of the Technological Platforms for E-Participation in Transition Economies of Ukraine and Russia , date=2016 , publisher=

Social Science Research Network The Social Science Research Network (SSRN) is an open access research platform that functions as a repository for sharing early-stage research and the rapid dissemination of scholarly research in the social sciences, humanities, life sciences, ...