[thelist] A legal question (was: Lawyers and stuff)

At 12:05 07.01.00 -0500, you wrote:ir product (which compares pretty
>well) with that of the competition. And then make the page so it targets
>the keywords of the competitions' brand in the searchengines. So if people
>look for the competitions brand they'll also find this comparing article,
>and may look at our product as well.
>
>Is this evil?
>Is this unfair competition?
>Can we be sued (nothing surprises me from the US) for his?
>
>Thanks for any advice,
>Peter

from a discussion group on this very topic:

>From: "Rudy Rutabega"
>Subject: HTML Code Police
>
>Just wanted to let everyone know that there are some very aggressive
attorney's
>that have been hired to look for search words, terms or names of companies
that
>have no relevance to your site or are on your site without permission.  I
>thought it was odd when I was getting unusual hits of all my pages at 3
and 4 AM
>until I got my cease & desist notice.
>
>I had a 'thank you' to a company on one page and was ordered to take it
down as
>they felt it was implying they consented to my site and contents.  I also had
>'wording that was so similar it was obviously copied' from the client's
>copyrighted work.  (It may have as I got it from someone else and did not
know
>it was copyrighted.)
>
>Little guys cannot afford to fight the big guys so check very carefully.  You
>should get one warning and then it is "understood as intentional
infringement"
>and the big guns come out!  I don't want to sign this with my domain's
here as
>they show up on the net in a search and I have enough problems right now.
Today
>I also just received two tax questionnaires regarding my websites from the
local
>authorities.
>
>
>It is all coming...
>
>I see people using competitors in their meta tags and this is being looked at
>closely.  If someone did the site for you, I do not know where the liability
>will fall.  If it is cloaked and discovered it may be worse.  Any legal
beagles
>out there want to enlighten us?  Mine was unintentional and taken down within
>minutes of receiving the mail.
>
>Rudy Rutabega

.wolf
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