I believe these questions gave Derek Perez, of NVIDIA, the opportunity to answer many questions and help resolve this situation.

1.) How did a person like me, with a site like mine actually end up getting a "contract" or document like the one I had received from NVIDIA?:

It is unfortunate - but you don't always know who you are dealing with. Here at NVIDIA we have over 60 people in marketing and unfortunately, someone who thought he was doing the correct thing was not. The contract that is on Hypothermia (sp?) is a document that we use for corporate to corporate promotions. 

1b.)What are these types of documents or "contracts" normally used for??

Let's say if and OEM would like to do a banner for a show this agreement assures us that we have top billing with that promotion

2.) Although I was instructed by an individual who worked for NVIDIA to remove competitors logo's, you say this is not a "standard" policy of NVIDIA. What is your position on competitors logo placement?? 

Again, your site is your site - whatever you want to put on that site or however you wish to design that site is up to you. In PR we do not ask anyone to alter their design of the site for any reason. 

3.) Competitors product reviews would seem to naturally fall under the same category as the one listed above, but your official policy on this would be??

Products do not fall in this category - promotions and reviews are 2 different things. Whatever you review is whatever you review…we've never asked anyone to pull a review for competitive reasons. 

4.) I know you have stated that each site is treated on a case by case basis, so how would you characterize my situation?? It might seem strange to people reading this, and they wonder how things like this could transpire over such a long period of time and no one be any the wiser including me, how does a situation like this occur??

I feel really bad in your situation, because for the last 7 months you have been misled by a non-NVIDIA employee (intern, contractor, etc…). This situation has been rectified and we have put in the necessary steps so this doesn't happen again. To Hypothermia, who had thought that this was an accurate PR rep, I apologize and for all of the grief/headache this has caused I apologize for that too.

4b.) And how could it be prevented in the future??

For here on out all online promotions will be run through the PR department and voted on by a panel of marketing executives within NVIDIA.

5.) On a regular day what would a site need to do to receive consideration for review product??

The site does have to have a "certain" amount of visitors each week, month or day - the site has to be a reputable/good standing site (can't disappear in 2 months like so many do), be willing to share "hit rate" info and share their testing methodology. 

6.) How many PR people are actually employed by NVIDIA??

Our team consists of 2 people…

6b.) So that means a person would need to get the facts from either of you two to consider it an actual "PR" statement from NVIDIA

Precisely…

7.) I want to do a  giveaway that I would like you to sponsor. It seems that LARGE AMOUNTS of criticism and angst have been directed towards current fan sites like:

3DGPU

RivaStation

nVnews 

as well as people whom have posted this news like HardOCP for airing my story.

 I want to hold a giveaway for 4 GeForce 2 GTS 64mb boards to be given away on my site. One designated for each sites readers, Who above all, felt the impact of this the greatest. 

It would be a fantastic show of good faith on the part of NVIDIA to sponsor such an event through my site. You are the man this needs to go through. . . . what do you say?? 

I say, yes, we can do some "kind" of promo for you and your site - a couple of boards, t-shirts, hats…etc. We can work that out…

8.) If one thing could be learned from all of this. . . . what would it be??

3 lessons can be learned:

1. Always try to have more than one contact at each place (site and corporation).
2. Don't ever assume anything 
3. Always talk the situation through first. 


Steve, thanks for the opportunity to clear this up. Again, apologies to you and your site for the confusion this has caused over the last 7 months. 

Derek Perez
Director of Public Relations
NVIDIA Corporation







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