LiveJournal, the online community run by blog-software maker Six Apart is rowdy, contentious, and mostly undeserving of attention. But occasionally its cantankerous users, in their perpetual, pointless war with Six Apart management, make a decent point. For example, this one: Why do three of the four nonprofits chosen to benefit from a recent sale of paid LiveJournal accounts have ties to early Six Apart investor Joi Ito? Ito no longer serves on Six Apart's board, but he's the CEO and founder of Neoteny, a Japanese venture capital firm which provided Six Apart with much of its initial backing. Neoteny chairman Jun Makihara has a board seat. And Six Apart CEO Barak Berkowitz previously worked for Neoteny. I'd never say the organizations Ito's linked to — the EFF, Creative Commons, and Witness — aren't doing good work. But it all seems very cozy. So cozy that the supposedly pro-transparency company didn't care to disclose the fact to customers.

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