PetitionOnline

It was launched and trademarked in 1999 by Artifice, Inc., a private 3D modeling software company launched and led by Kevin Michael Matthews, a professor at the University of Oregon during the 1990s. By the end of February 2000, Matthews had included and trademarked the site's slogan: "This is the marketplace of free ideas". In 2011, the service was acquired by Change.org. It underwent a design change on October 30, 2011. On September 30, 2014, PetitionOnline shut down citing increased costs of web hosting and development. == Functioning ==

A petition that gathered a required number of signatures could be delivered by its creator to its intended recipient, usually by e-mail. According to the site itself, as of October 29, 2011, it had collected over 93 million signatures. By October 2000, the petitions were grouped into eight thematic categories, four of which were explicitly political: "Politics and Government – USA", "Politics and Government – International", "Politics and Government – State", "Politics and Government – Local", "Entertainment and Media", "Environment", "Religion", and "Technology & Business". ==In the news==

Some of the site's petitions received outside attention for the issues they have stood for. The site claimed that its first official response to a hosted petition was from the "Dissatisfied Web TV Consumer Petition", in which Dennis Reno, senior director of Web TV customer service, responded to the claims of low-quality service. In January 2002, CNN wrote a formal apology to the National Association of Muslim Women, which posted the "Petition to Correct the Negative Portrayal of Muslim Women in CNN Program Coverage" on the PetitionOnline site in December 2001, over perceived offensive comments made by Leon Harris during the TalkBack Live program.{{cite web In 2004, the petition "iBook Logic Board Failure" was part of the coverage over a threatened lawsuit against Apple Computer over defective iBook laptops.{{cite news Other claims of success through hosted online petitions include the introduction of Sci-Fi Channel Australia and the stopping of the possible closure of the San Francisco Japantown.{{cite web ==Criticism==

Some petitions hosted on the site have caused the credibility of the site to be questioned.{{cite web ==See also==