Interestingly enough.: FontPool is part of, or at least related to, myFonts, as it seems..
The domain ( fontpool.com ) is registred to.: Kevin Woodward, kwoodward*myfonts.com

> www.whois.sc/fontpool.com
( Details courtesy of their public WhoIs data.. )

One of the things that bothers me about this site (aside from the obvious lack of tact on MyFonts part for allowing a conflict of interest by having an internal employee have a click-link site earning commissions) is that FontPool is utilizing information not otherwise available to MyFont designers and foundries can be improper to disclose. I am speaking of the sales rank for a given family which is only found for the top 50 or so on the MyFonts website, but on the FontPool website is disclosed for all families. I find it a bit disturbing that MyFonts chooses to disclose this information to third parties without permission nor without offering it to the designers themselves.

Does Nick Shinn WANT people to know that Alphaville is the 4,475th most popular of 8,500 families that MyFonts sells? I would think not. Does Nick Curtis want people to know that Boogaloo (the face name that Berthold went after Bitstream for $$ on) is the 4,357th seller? I would think not. Does Bitstream want people to know that their version of Americana is the 1,602nd most popular, while the Linotype is 492nd, the Elsner + Flake is 2,782nd, the Scangraphic 1,664th, and the URW++ 4,198th? Again, I would think not. These examples can go on and on.

While I appreciate that the individual sales of any typeface are not astronomical, this type of information can be used to extrapolate what most would consider proprietary data. It's really irresponsible of MyFonts to allow this abuse of privacy.

I don't think customers really care about sales rank.

I find it unfathomable that "MyFonts," or in this case, Bitstream, would not know about this site. Therefore, it must be legit. I MyFonts makes money from the referrals, then it is probably OK with them anyway. Just a guess

>Alphaville is the 4,475th most popular

John from MyFonts told me it's an affiliate site and MyFonts provides the rendered images.

Ralf

what's the deal with this webstie: www.fontpool.com? and who's this K C Woodward person?

I don't think FontPool is part of MyFonts, but Kevin is definitely
a MyFonts employee. I believe he ran the site long before
MyFonts was born.

who’s this K C Woodward person?

“Kevin Woordward […] is the author of the amazing WhatTheFont online font recognition system”
Adam

So, kind of a hero for us type id-ers …