On June 13th, Telugu360 has published an open letter sent by one of our readers titled ‘ITServe : A cartel to throttle immigration reforms’. This letter has spread viral within the immigrant community and it was quoted in all the major immigrant websites and forums. However, Telugu360 had to remove the letter after 12 hours. We have received a number of emails from a number of readers asking why the letter was removed. Some of letters even went so far to allege that we colluded with ITServe. We got letters from four immigration attorneys as well as to why this letter had to be taken down. We wanted to clarify our position on this issue.

First things first, this letter was taken down due to notice that we got from ITServe leadership. While we believe we haven’t infringed on any copyright as alleged by ITServe, we decided to remove the letter as we were not privy to all the details that have transcribed leading to this event. So as a media organization we didn’t want to pass a judgement (even though it was a reader letter) on an organization.

Here is what we think are the next logical steps :

Immigrant Community: This site is owned and operated by immigrants who have been through the process. So we understand there are lot of emotions involved when there is even a prima facie evidence that some groups are trying to throttle reforms. But one has to realize that even people such as Mark Zuckerberg haven’t been able to make any impact on congress to simplify the immigration reform. Has ITServe done anything to stymie the immigration reform or not is a discussion for another day, but we believe that the impact of these organizations is minimal at best.

ITServe and Attorney : As per the notice sent to us, it was mentioned that the video was taken out of context and two different videos were taken and so the content is misleading. Why don’t ITServe release complete unedited version of the videos if it believes that these edited videos on the web are being taken out of context? Instead of going after every video uploader on YouTube, it will answer everyones questions if ITServe uploads complete video of that meeting without any edits.

Also, ITServe has promised that a press note will be send to media explaining about this issue. Telugu360 will publish the letter and then provide our analysis on this issue.

Thanks everyone for continued patronage.