or myself and on behalf of The Green Sheet (TGS) staff, I wish to whole heartedly and without reservation apologize to Michael Daily, Chris West, Laura West, Robert Hendrix, Bobby Barnes and any other investor/owner of "The Watchdog Site" and new business referred to as The MSA-The Merchant Services Advocate, for any harm or hardship TGS may have caused them in their effort to create this new business, whether by accident or by omission.

While many GS readers may be aware of the plans to create this new business, which has been talked about a great deal (166 online posts since May 13, 2003) by Michael Daily on The Green Sheet MLS Forum (user name: CardPro), other readers may not be.

The essence of the business problem is based on an online public post by Mr. Daily on July 7, 2003, in which Mr. Daily suggested that it would be a good idea to have a Web site where MLSs could post any lawsuit that they or others might be involved in, as it pertained to the Payments industry.

Mr. Daily's post on July 7, 2003 read:

"I would like to get some feed back from MLSs and ISOs alike about setting up a new section of Green Sheet, or setting up a separate Web site that would be devoted to 'actual' legal filings against processors, ISOs and agents in this business.

"There has been in the past so much that has been said on the Green Sheet about companies and individuals. Most of it from those that wanted nothing more than to cause trouble for someone or some company. The purpose of Legal News would be to post the actual filings of law suits, government agency filings and filings against individuals so that we all could see what was going on, who is suing whom, and for what.

"I think that this would be valuable information for everyone in this business and would simply be the facts, as outlined in court documents or agency documents and not just the personal opinions.

"I would like to know what you think. I believe it is time to start policing our own industry and this would be a start in the right direction. The more information you have, the more informed decisions you will make."

As many of you know, TGS did indeed set up a new section of our Web site entitled Payment Processing Litigation (PPL), moving previously published information about lawsuits to this section. In addition, TGS was approached by attorney Adam Atlas, who had previously contributed industry articles to TGS, to act on behalf of TGS to vet any lawsuit posted to the site, and to answer any complaints TGS might receive about these cases by those involved in the litigation.

Mr. Daily and his business partners assert that TGS has acted inappropriately in establishing the legal section, the GS PPL, on its Web site, whereby: placing their new business, The MSA, at a business disadvantage; not acknowledging that the idea for this section was Mr. Daily's; and, acting unethically in its dealings with them.

I have reviewed all the materials representing any contact with Bankcard Watchdog and can only conclude that the investors in The MSA Web site assumed communications between them and TGS were proprietary and conducted for the purpose of furthering their own business venture. Whereas from the perspective of those TGS employees involved in any and all contact with Mr. Daily, no information that was shared was proprietary, and in fact Mr. Daily expected that TGS would act independently as he suggested in his initial Forum posting, or in concert with his investors, or both. The choice as to how TGS might or might not be involved with The MSA Web site was yet for me to determine.

It is my desire out of fairness to all concerned that this public apology is clear and that all facets of this event are made public. Although TGS explicitly denies any wrong doing or intended harm in our conversations, emails, or in the use of our public "Forum" site in dealing with Mr. Daily or his associates, I cannot deny that the existence of the PPL section of TGS site may make it more difficult for Mr. Daily to achieve his goals in creating a financially viable business with The MSA Web site.

This said, TGS will immediately take down the PPL site and move the lawsuit information, which previously existed elsewhere on our site, back to its alternate locations; and discontinue the PPL section as conceived for a one-year period. This will give Mr. Daily ample opportunity to commercialize his idea without the competition of free GS content.

Footnote: I am told that Michael Daily, Chris West, Laura West, Robert Hendrix, Bobby Barnes and Adam Atlas made up the founders of BankcardWatchdog.com; however, Michael Daily is the sole owner of The MSA - The Merchant Services Advocate.