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So GetSatisfaction mildy misrepresents their association with 37Signals and uses their IP without authorization.. and 37Signals counters with a potentially slan
by Gibbon 18y ago
So GetSatisfaction mildy misrepresents their association with 37Signals and uses their IP without authorization.. and 37Signals counters with a potentially slanderous letter in a public forum? Not exactly a great way to start a dialogue or build a legal case.
Most any other company would first engage with a civil, private, discussion, followed by legal action before firing off a public lambasting as a last resort (a rare event at that.)
There may be some valid points in the post, but whining in public makes you like a fool, to customers, to other businesses and to the public at large. Totally unprofessional.
- Semiapies 18y agoWhat was slanderous (or, since it was written, libelous) about anything in the blog post? Very simply, GS set up web pages where they appeared to represent another company in a detrimental way. That is <i>not</i> something the other company is obligated to quietly request them to stop - they are well within their rights to open up with a cease & desist order, not an annoyed blog post.
- Gibbon 18y agoFor starters he implied (and borderline accused) GetSatisfaction of blackmail and extortionist practices.
- rimantas 18y agoFor startes GetSatisfaction accused 37s of not caring for their customers. Publicly.
- Semiapies 18y agoLibel has to be a lie. Someone harshly laying out their opinion on a business's practices and saying those practices resemble extortion isn't even in the running for libel unless s/he says something factually untrue about those practices. Opinions aren't libelous.
- Gibbon 18y agoIn law, defamation (also called calumny, libel, slander, and vilification) is the communication of a statement that makes a claim, expressly stated or implied to be factual, that may give an individual, business, product, group, government or nation a negative image. It is often, but not always, a requirement that this claim be false, and, or alternatively, that the publication is made to someone other than the person defamed.
- Semiapies 18y agoFried didn't post about the private sex lives of people working for Get Satisfaction. He accurately described their operation and characterized it unfavorably. While the law differs in other parts of the world, in the United States libel has to involve knowingly false statements meant to give someone a negative image. Making complaints on one's blog and having the party you're complaining about show up, act highly apologetic, and immediately start rewriting parts of their website to address your complaints is about as far from "defamation" as you can get.
- Gibbon 18y agoAny statement can be grounds for defamation if it can be proved true or false in a court. A statement made as a fact (for example "The site also hosts, without permission, company support pages for over 14,000 companies.") is potentially actionable.
- Semiapies 18y agoBy your persistence on this point, I assume you're both British (or otherwise only familiar with UK law) and think UK law is relevant on this point. It's not. I'll leave you to ponder the question, "If Fried's complaints in his blog post are 'defamatory', what exactly are all the consumer complaints on Get Satisfaction's site, then?"
- Gibbon 18y agoA blog post can be classified either as slander or libel, depending on the jurisdiction. Some courts have placed blogs together with other broadcast media and libel law, while others have ruled blogs are part of an ongoing conversation and fall under slander laws.