Amway knew it was in trouble when internet arrived and details about company’s pyramid schemes began appearing online. A memo dated Dec 19, 1997, that surfaced in a lawsuit, contains details of a voice message sent out to Amway leadership, by then Vice President, Ken MacDonald, that reveals just how desperately Amway tried to control flow of information on internet.

MacDonald said ... "This message is on internet ... we’ve hired consultants and been working very diligently on all of secret computer language that helps search engines pick a site and because of that we’ve moved positive Amway sites quite a bit up in web search engines, and some of negative sites down. And lastly, that we are working to provide very soon, for all those who qualified Emeralds and above ... their own personal homepage so we will have tons of positive Amway information on web," he said.

There is one particular document that company has gone to great lengths to stop people from reading on internet. In fact, on June 12, 1998, Amway went to court and got a Protective Order in attempt to keep this specific report hidden from public view.

Professor G Robert Blakey was retained as an expert witness for plaintiffs in 1998 Procter & Gamble v Amway lawsuit to render an opinion on Amway's business practices. He is one of nation's foremost authorities on organized crime. Blakey was directly involved in drafting and implementing RICO-type legislation in 22 of more than 30 states that enacted racketeering laws.

After studying Amway’s business structure and functions, Blakey, wrote a damning report that stated: “It is my opinion that Amway business is run in a manner that is parallel to that of major organized crime groups, in particular Mafia. The structure and function of major organized crime groups, generally consisting of associated enterprises engaging in patterns of legal and illegal activity, was prototype forming basis for federal and state racketeering legislation that I have been involved in drafting. The same structure and function, with associated enterprises engaging in patterns of legal and illegal activity, is found in Amway business.”

For those not familiar with RICO Act, it "was passed by ... Congress to enable persons financially injured by a pattern of criminal activity to seek redress through state or federal courts," according to Rico Act website. Amway has been sued hundreds of time under RICO Act.

Blakey Report Outed

In early spring of 2004, Amway became extremely upset when full Blakey Report began appearing on world wide web. The company’s attorneys flew into action trying to suppress it.

Initially, they successfully used protective order to force websites to remove report. For example, on March 11, 2004, MLM Survivor website reported that Quixtar Blog had removed Blakey Report from its servers and said "... according to site owner, Amway's lawyers are frantically trying to find out who leaked. They assert report is confidential, and covered by a protective order."

However, Amway was not as successful with getting it removed from other sites. MLM Survivor reported that company attorneys also contacted MLM, to demand that they remove report from its website because it was sealed under a protective order.

Survivor’s response to Amway was, “We can't remove what we don't have. MLM Survivor does not now, nor has it ever, had a copy of report on its website. Link, yes. Copy, no," website said.

This must be like deja vu to MLM. The website had already been hit with one SLAPPer lawsuit by Amway. SLAPP is abbreviation for Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation. According to First Amendment Center, “SLAPPers do not sue to achieve a litigation outcome; rather, they file to silence their opposition. Generally, mere filing of suit — or just threat of suit — accomplishes that purpose;” www.firstamendmentcenter.org

However, it looks like SLAPPer failed to obtain its objective with Survivor because site is still alive and well on internet. In fact, Survivor had this to say about lawsuit. "I have to admit that I've been waiting for about six years (as long as this site has been in existence) for Amway/Quixtar/Alticor to slap me with a lawsuit for one trumped-up thing or another. I never expected my first-ever lawsuit to be such a farce," it said.

In another futile attempt to have report removed from a site, on March 2, 2004, Amway Attorney Griffin, sent a letter with a copy of court order, to a research professor by name of David Touretzky. On March 21, 2004, he wrote back to Attorney Griffin and stated: My reading of this order leads to following observations:

Paragraph 16 says that terms of order shall remain in force "to extent that information in such material is not or does not become known to public..." Since I obtained my copy of Blakey Report from a publicly accessible web page, information clearly has become known to public. The order therefore no longer applies to this document.

Paragraph 16 also says that protective order is "binding upon all persons to whom confidential information is disclosed hereunder." The information was not disclosed to me under terms of this order. I was never a party to this litigation, nor do I have any relationship of any kind with Amway, or Proctor & Gamble, or their respective attorneys, agents, or consultants. The protective order was never intended to apply to totally unrelated parties like me, or news media, and it is not binding upon me now.

Touretzky’s reasoning would apply to copy of report that I obtained as well. When I discovered my copy a while back, it was already published on a number sites. It is currently posted on just about every Amway website out there.

The entire report can be read on www.merchantsofdeception.com website of Eric Scheileber, a former Amway Distributor, who wrote book, Merchants of Deception, that prompted current FBI investigation of Amway, and an expose by NBC’s Dateline. (The book discloses Amway’s close ties to Republican party and both Bush administrations and can be downloaded free, for a limited time, on website)

Why Was Amway So Worried?

Why was Amway so worried about people reading report? Probably because it very specifically explains how Amway Corporation’s family-business structure is just like mafia. According to Blakey, Amway has a family structure nearly identical to those found in organized crime.

Several people like to use their credit card when they do their commerce, it is very common now that merchants accept credit cards, that will give his customers confidence to make order without hesitation...