If you haven't signed the Avaaz petition started by Stefan today, D - 1, would be a good day. 1200 signatures aleady in two days!

Link to petition: https://secure.avaaz.org/en/petition/For_a_strong_Community_behind_CouchSurfing/

"From the Switzerland group:


Why this is important


We, the community of CouchSurfing, are

the ones who built everything from scratch in voluntary work. Many of us

still are doing everything to keep the spirit of CouchSurfing alive,

even if it's getting more and more difficult, as much is done to raise

the numbers of users, but not enough to keep the quality at the same

time. Many of us already left as CouchSurfing turned into a

B-Corporation, because of the fear that the spirit about the alternative

way of CouchSurfing got lost completely and profit and greed took it's

place.


The newest changes in the Terms of Use and the Privacy Policy show

clearly, that the mission „One couch at the time“ was replaced by

seeking profit, forcing people to leave the community if the law of

their country doesn't fit with the dictatorial rules of CouchSurfing

International Inc.


As this community was giving such a high social reward to all it's

users, and as we won't just watch how this all is destroyed by the

profit-seeking share holders, we decided to fight for the future of our

community and will do our best to put it back to the track of the user

based community it has been for a long time!


As I can't insert the hole demands into the text of my petition, the

full demands can be found here:


http://www.couchsurfing.org/group_read.html?gid=248&post=13133232


Detailed Information about the single demands can be found here:


http://www.couchsurfing.org/group_read.html?gid=248&post=13132999


Please also all send this demands to policies@couchsurfing.com directly to show your personal unhappiness.


To make mobilisation easier now and for future fights, I created a

Facebook-Page to collect all users that use Facebook and want to fight

for a strong Community behind CouchSurfing:

https://www.facebook.com/pages/For-a-strong-Community-behind-CouchSurfing/259352857518810



Help us with our fight, do everything that this petition is going viral!

This is our chance to show that we do care about the future of

CouchSurfing, and that we do care how we and our data is handled!"


The detailed demands from the above link are:


"We don't intend to harm or block the future of CouchSurfing. We want

that the Management Team cares about the spirit of CouchSurfing and not

just runs for profit!


For that reason, we claim the ten following demands:


1. Don't share our data with anyone without our permission!


On CouchSurfing, it is crucial for our safety that the data, which the

users provide, are accurate and complete. However, if you take yourself

the right to share it all with everyone you want, that will lead to less

accurate and more incomplete information. If you don't intend to sell

our data to everyone, don't write it in a way that you are allowed to do

exactly this! Don't use our data for the only purpose of increasing

your profit!


2. Let us decide who can get our data!


Give us the possibility to say absolutely no that ANY of our data is

given to other parties that are not crucial for keeping the basic

service up! Let us decide which data we want to have shared and which

not!


3. After we delete data, don't share it anymore and delete it soon after!


When we decide that we want to delete information about us, delete

pictures or delete our profile at all, you must stop sharing this data

immediately (except from legal inquieries) and delete it within a

reasonable time. There is a reason why users decide to delete their

data, and it's not right if you still share it with everyone afterwards

and as long as you want! Give us the possibility to delete our data, not

just to remove the link!


4. Don't terminate our access to CS or delete our profiles without any cause!


It's no question that there are various reasons why you have to block or

delete profiles from time to time. However, that's no reason to be

allowed to do it without any reason or suspicion! And again: If you

don't intend to do this, don't give yourself the right for it!


5. Follow the rules of the countries where you provide your service!


You can't seriously ask that people from countries with strong data

protection laws have to sign out from CouchSurfing. This way you not

only black out people concerned about their data, you also black out

whole countries!


6. Inform us about every change in the Terms of Use and other Guidelines!


We can't check if you may have changed something in the Terms of Use or

other Guidelines every time we log into our account. But that's exactly

what you ask us to do! You have to provide us with a notification about

every change, with detailed information about what exactly you were

changing! Give us the possibility to agree or disagree with the changes!


7. Don't write contractory information in the Terms of Use and the other Guidelines!


It's nothing more than putting sand in our eyes, if you write in the

Privacy Policy that you won't share our data without our consent and in

the Terms of Use (which are ruling over the Privacy Policy) you take

yourself the right to do anything you want without notifying us!


8. Don't tell us fairy tales and lies!


As we all are mature, it's not neccessary to tell us nice stories

wrapped with beautiful words and lies if you want to introduce big and

important changes. If you want to share data with everyone, make profit

by all means out of a Community that was buillt by it's members and

don't care if users continue to organise meetings and offering their

homes to travellers, ok, that would be sad, but at least state it

cleary! Coming up with official Terms of Use that allow you to do

anything you want, and then assuring us inofficially through some low

level agents that you won't use most of your rights has nothing to do

with legal security, but is nothing more than offending to all of the

caring users!




9. Ask the community about their opinion about changes before you change something!


It's not the first time that you announce the upcoming or already

introduced changes and then deny or ignore the disagreement of big

numbers of users! That may work like that in top-down companies that run

for profit only, it can't work in a user based community! It's not a

problem to ask for our opinion if you intend to change something!


10. Listen to the community!


As you just offer your service as a plattform where we can connect with

each other, don't forget that we still and always will do the major part

for this community! If every active organiser (which is doing

everything on a voluntary basis) leaves this community, everything is

going to crash down, and nobody is able to profit anymore, also not if

you have a shiny and neat homepage that is running perfectly stable at

this time.


We expect from the poeple in charge of CouchSurfing to do everything to meet our demands!


For the Community of CouchSurfing


Stefan, CouchSurfing member, Switzerland""