E-gold has offered such fantastic global opportunity to people…so many millions of people, it is just sad to see a great invention created by the sharpest minds on the Internet, corroded by these operations. Your question was:
“Is today’s ignorance the fault of e-gold, or is it just convenient to blame e-gold??”

No of course not. Its not e-gold’s fault, the public was being scammed by Ponzi and Pyramid schemes long before e-gold was born. Ponzi scam ignorance is not e-gold’s fault, or e-bullion’s, or v-money’s etc. Gullible and greedy people have always been around and long after e-gold is gone, the ponzi crowd will be as strong as ever, I’m sure. Ignorant or greedy people who buy e-gold and piss it away on a ponzi, NO NO you can’t blame e-gold, no one can make that claim.

But the larger question, today on everyone’s mind is: “Should e-gold, a US operation, take extraordinary measures to try and protect the ignorant public by filtering users and NOT allowing these type scams….is it now e-gold’s responsibility, since it has been widely recognized that e-gold is the preferred method of payment by HYIP scams, is it now e-gold’s responsibility to make every attempt possible to in advance prevent or block scams from using their product?”
Some in the US may say this is a more appropriate question.

Answer Option 1) NO, if you got rid of e-gold completely, the ponzi scams would still be here. E-gold does not facilitate these scams. But the continued operation of ponzi’s would then be picked up by NON US entities. Solution 1–Move out of the US jurisdiction and keep the ponzi income

Answer Option 2) Yes, if e-gold changed their policies to become a more mainstream regulated US payment system, they would –by the very nature of US regulations– prevent all these scams. Solution 2–Stay in the US, upgrade the 1996 e-gold policies, enter the US post 9/11 world and continue the great business that is digital gold.

It seems like a coin toss until you take a closer look….
Take off the blinders which are apparently blocking e-gold from visualizing a long term success plan. This original DGC, has hundreds of long time supporters (including me) and legitimate merchants who have on a daily basis been talking customers into using e-gold over methods like PayPal. Look at my good friend Amr over at XtraOrbit.com hosting. He is one of the sharpest and most legit hosting businesses on the internet today accepting e-gold.(no anon hosting, no hyip, no gambling, no adult, et) Literally, 20% of his total monthly business comes from e-gold due to his location in Egypt and his international clientele. He was just shut out of all Google Adword programs due to their “e-gold ban” which was caused by the ponzi’s.

Shouldn’t e-gold have a better long term business policy in support of legit merchants and not quick buck ponzi scams? Without even bringing into question, regulations or waving the flag in support of global freedom, shouldn’t e-gold really be thinking and catering to long term legitimate business growth and merchants instead of scams? That IS an internal policy question, that’s not a legal issue, if my business was going to lose a good percentage of legit long term merchants because of the actions of scams….I would be finding ways to kill the scams today so they won’t come back.

As the smartest man in the world a global leader of the masses, as I apparently have just named myself, I would voluntarily make changes in my original 1996 policies, in support of legitimate long term merchant growth. NO CHANGES in current policy means support for the ponzis, plain and simple. The e-gold operators can avoid the issue and say, “Its not our fault people are ignorant” but that’s just a sidestep and when you make that move, you have permanently lost your legit merchants and customers which by the way took a decade to acquire. To rebuild that base would be impossible today because of the dozens of other popular options like Moneybookers.
I think the real line of questions here, and I know you can’t respond to these because of the pending actions, but the items we should all be asking it why is e-gold still located in the United States?

The creation of a digital unit which can transfer value (in this case backed by gold) was like discovering fire back in the late 90’s. It was an amazing life changing business creation and marveled at by all. But then came 9/11 – 2001, followed by the Patriot Act, followed by the USSS action in December of 2005….what’s it going to take to make the move to Panama? A cold beverage awaits you.

Thanks for the comment and sorry for my rant but I love that company and I hate to see slowing eroded away by scammers. At the same time I know there is no magic wand to wave and make the scams go away. It like walking the razor’s edge.

Mark
PS My offer of cold beverages still stands!

Now stop and THINK. How come Ponzi didn’t offer such stupid-ass rates of return? I’ll tell you why. Because back then, people were more literate both about economics-101 and about the very nature of money itself. Is today’s ignorance the fault of e-gold, or is it just convenient to blame e-gold?? You tell me, but be HONEST for once, I don’t see much of that…
JMR

Thanks again.
Mark