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Belkin
Belkin
Belkin International, Inc.
Type Founded Headquarters Key people
Private 1983 Compton, California Chet Pipkin, Founder and CEO; Mark Reynoso, President Computer hardware Computer hardware Un-available 1000+ www.belkin.com
Industry Products Revenue Employees Website
Belkin International, Inc. is a global manufacturer of computer hardware which specializes in connectivity devices. Belkin sells primarily in the consumer and home user market, with various product lines including routers, switches, hubs (USB and computer network), cables, MP3 accessories, uninterruptible power supply devices (UPSs), KVM switches, and other peripherals. The company was founded in 1983 in Hawthorne, California by current CEO Chet Pipkin. It has twice made the Inc. magazine’s list of 500 fastest-growing privately held companies in the United States. At present, Belkin is headquartered in Compton, California.
received some intense criticism for this from technically literate customers and others who described it as a man-in-the-middle attack or a form of session hijacking. Belkin initially treated this as a public relations problem rather than a highly inappropriate action on their part, but later relented and removed this intentional malfunction from their products. [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] In early 2009, a Belkin ’online sales representative’ was discovered paying Amazon.com, Newegg and Buy.com users to manipulate reviews of a notoriously buggy Belkin router. Belkin’s President, Mark Reynoso, responded to criticism, saying that the company does not engage in unethical practices, noting however that ’one of our employees’ may have been responsible. [6] [7] [8] [9] On January 19, 2009, gizmodo.com published a letter from an anonymous Belkin worker, where the employee claims that for years all workers were pressed upon to "do whatever is needed to get good product reviews and good press", which included "sending blog writers a device with custom firmware that hides known bugs", "faking hardware logo certifications", as well as "writing poor reviews of competitors products". According to him, the company policy included even paying magazines for positive reviews. He also says that "two of the three cofounders of the company quit over the poor direction Belkin has taken, over 70% of the employees in certain business units have quit".[10]
Product Range
There product range includes a number of connectivity devices and acessories. They specialize in connectivity but have recently been expanding into the accessories market. For the product range go to belkin.com.
Awards
Belkin was in the "Inner City Top 100" list for six consecutive years and the Los Angeles Business Journal’s “Fastest Growing Private Companies” list for five years.[11]
Criticism
In 2003 Belkin released a home use wireless router which would occasionally replace user’s HTTP requests with an advertisement for Belkin’s filtering software. Belkin
References
[1] "Help! my Belkin router is spamming me". The Register. 7th November 2003. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2003/11/07/ help_my_belkin_router/. Retrieved on 2005-08-02.
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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Belkin
[2] "Belkin Routers Route Users to write-fake-positive-amazon-reviews/. Censorware Ad". Slashdot. 090117 thedailybackground.com http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/ [8] "Belkin Caught Paying for Positive 11/07/1740205. Retrieved on Reviews". http://www.pcfastlane.com/ 2005-08-02. technews/belkin-caught-paying-for[3] "CastleCops - Web hijack riles Belkin positive-reviews/. 090117 router users". http://castlecops.com/ pcfastlane.com a4056-Web_hijack_riles_Belkin_router_users.html. [9] http://www.crunchgear.com/2009/01/18/ 080205 castlecops.com belkin-replies-to-mechanical-turk[4] "Web hijack riles Belkin router users". shilling/ Crunchgear: Belkin replies to http://news.com.com/ Mechanical Turk shilling. Retrieved on 2100-1039_3-5104863.html. 080205 18 Jan 2009. news.com.com [10] "Belkin Employee Sheds Light On [5] "Web hijacking by router - a new method Belkin’s Supposedly Dirty Practices". of advertisement by Belkin". Gizmodo. 19th January 2009. http://www.merit.edu/mail.archives/ http://i.gizmodo.com/5134652/belkinnanog/2003-11/msg00228.html. 080205 employee-sheds-light-on-belkinsmerit.edu supposedly-dirty-practices. Retrieved on [6] "Belkin Amazon Rep Paying For Fake 2009-01-20. Online Reviews". [11] http://www.belkin.com/pressroom/about/ http://hardware.slashdot.org/ ?sid=36 Belkin. Retrieved on 18 Jan article.pl?sid=09/01/17/166226. 090117 2009. slashdot.org [7] "Exclusive: Belkin’s Development Rep is Hiring People to Write Fake Positive • Belkin (US) Amazon Reviews". • Belkin (UK) http://www.thedailybackground.com/ • Belkin (ANZ) 2009/01/16/exclusive-belkinsdevelopment-rep-is-hiring-people-to-
External links
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belkin" Categories: Networking companies of the United States, Companies based in Los Angeles County, California, Companies established in 1983 This page was last modified on 21 May 2009, at 08:47 (UTC). All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License. (See Copyrights for details.) Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a U.S. registered 501(c)(3) taxdeductible nonprofit charity. Privacy policy About Wikipedia Disclaimers
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