abstract
| - Bear411 (at Bear411.com) is a gay bear chat and personals website. The webmaster is Gregory aka BuddyBear. Webcam photos sent via Bear411 can be displayed at Bearload.com where anyone can view them, and Bear411Sucks.com claims that some members of Bear411 have been surprised about their images be displayed for anyone to see. Harry Lit, organizer of charity fundraising event Lazy Bear Weekend, had various complaints about Greg and Bear411 including that several websites had been threatened that if they featured LazyBearWeekend.com then Greg "would take away your sponsorship, support and/or underwriting of their sites." Scott McGillivray, editor of 100% Beef magazine and former editor of Bear Magazine, also had various complaints including that Bear411 shouldn't be marketed as "service to the community" if events gets excluded from Bear411 if an event doesn't put a Bear411 banner on the front page of the event's website. McGillivray also complained that Greg lied to a Bear411 member about Lazy Bear Weekend. Bear411 has been criticized for membership standards that seem "capricious" or "racist". A boycott organized by bears on LiveJournal ensued. Bear411 has also been criticized for making it difficult, if not impossible, to delete a profile. There is no mechanism by which a user can delete, or even request to have their own profile deleted short of emailing the webmaster. As requests to delete profiles are seldom serviced, this artificially increases the number of users by a large number of inactive or abandoned profiles.
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