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While calling a lawyer might be a viable solution for some business disputes, it may not be practical or cost-effective for a small business owner with limited

While calling a lawyer might be a viable solution for some business disputes, it may not be practical or cost-effective for a small business owner with limited financial resources. This is even worse when the small business owner is based in Australia, and would have to engage in international law. Typically that means getting a law firm on both sides. Her attempts to contact Cloudflare for help have gone to dev/null. It is "not cool", and quite unfair that the small business owner based in Australia has been unable to get any response from Cloudflare, despite dealing with a serious issue of website hacking and theft of intellectual property. This clearly (yet again) highlights a potential lack of accountability and transparency in the customer service process of such large corporations, which could be particularly damaging for small businesses with limited resources. It is unfortunate that the small folks have to resort to HN posts to get any action. >> Maybe your friend can do some sort of Goth-themed fundraiser/raffle. How many tickets shall I put you down for?

anigbrowl 4y ago
If you're running any kind of business, you are sooner or later going to have some legal situation, whether it's a pay dispute, or a supplier issue, or something like this. You can wing it with no plan for the first year or two, but your friend has been going since 2006. Yes, you might need a law firm at each end. But the legal system of the two countries isn't so different, and if there's a registered trademark in place then it should be an open-and-shut case. While it's very hard for a small business to engage in litigation against a large corporation, escalating a complaint to their legal department to get them to actually pay attention is much more feasible. Of course it is 'not cool' that corporations are indifferent and unresponsive, but it's the reality we are stuck with. I say this even though I am one of the most anti-capitalist, anti-corporate people at HN. You need to balance the cost of legal fees against the likely loss of business over the last 6 months, and the likely loss of business in future, including the risk of losing the trademark through 'constructive abandonment' (not filing paperwork about an infringement). Your friend needs to do this anyway, regardless of how it turns out with Cloudflare. How many tickets shall I put you down for? Zero. Instead I have given you a bunch of actionable advice for free because I like goth culture. Meanwhile Tragic Beautiful has (I presume) a mailing list of satisfied customers whose help could be solicited for fundraising or an online social media campaign. Putting out a press release in your local/trade papers playing up the 'plucky small biz owner' angle might increase sales as well as get existing customers enthused about an online battle.

anigbrowl 4y ago

If you're running any kind of business, you are sooner or later going to have some legal situation, whether it's a pay dispute, or a supplier issue, or something like this. You can wing it with no plan for the first year or two, but your friend has been going since 2006. Yes, you might need a law firm at each end. But the legal system of the two countries isn't so different, and if there's a registered trademark in place then it should be an open-and-shut case. While it's very hard for a small business to engage in litigation against a large corporation, escalating a complaint to their legal department to get them to actually pay attention is much more feasible. Of course it is 'not cool' that corporations are indifferent and unresponsive, but it's the reality we are stuck with. I say this even though I am one of the most anti-capitalist, anti-corporate people at HN. You need to balance the cost of legal fees against the likely loss of business over the last 6 months, and the likely loss of business in future, including the risk of losing the trademark through 'constructive abandonment' (not filing paperwork about an infringement). Your friend needs to do this anyway, regardless of how it turns out with Cloudflare. How many tickets shall I put you down for? Zero. Instead I have given you a bunch of actionable advice for free because I like goth culture. Meanwhile Tragic Beautiful has (I presume) a mailing list of satisfied customers whose help could be solicited for fundraising or an online social media campaign. Putting out a press release in your local/trade papers playing up the 'plucky small biz owner' angle might increase sales as well as get existing customers enthused about an online battle.