[thechat] How *not* to steal a site design

[martin.p.burns at uk.pwcglobal.com]

Memo from Martin P Burns of PricewaterhouseCoopers

-------------------- Start of message text --------------------

Our good friends at http://www.proximaconsulting.com/
seem to have problems deciding what to put on their site. Poor lambs.

They also seem to have had problems with coming up with an effective
user experience.

So, in the best tradition of dumb people everywhere, they stole it. All.
Words, images, layout, sitemap down to a URL level. Everything.

Which would have been fine (in a 'not' sense) except that they stole
it from one of the better UK CED and SI agencies, Oyster:
http://www.oyster.co.uk/

...who found it when one of their staff was doing some research. The
only changes Proxima had made seems to have been a crude
search and replace on the Oyster name, even claiming that Proxima
had merged with companies who had in fact merged with Oyster.

Since being called on it, Proxima have pulled the entire site beyond
the Flash intro. So skipping the intro means you also skip the entire
site. Nice.

Fortunately, Google has a cached copy:
<http://www.google.com/search?q=cache:i5kSpVYB0hU:www.proximaconsulting.com/jobs/commitment.html>
-v-
http://www.oyster.co.uk/jobs/commitment.html

and

http://www.oyster.co.uk/oyster/history.html
http://www.oyster.co.uk/oyster/angle.html
-v-
<http://www.google.com/search?q=cache:fyF_JOctSOs:www.proximaconsulting.com/proxima/angle.html+proxima+consulting+KBW>

Cheers
Martin

--------------------- End of message text --------------------

The principal place of business of PricewaterhouseCoopers and its associate
partnerships is 1 Embankment Place, London WC2N 6NN where lists of the
partners' names are available for inspection. All partners in the associate
partnerships are authorised to conduct business as agents of, and all
contracts for services to clients are with, PricewaterhouseCoopers. The UK
firm of PricewaterhouseCoopers is authorised by the Institute of Chartered
Accountants in England and Wales to carry on investment business.
PricewaterhouseCoopers is a member of the world-wide
PricewaterhouseCoopers organisation.
----------------------------------------------------------------
The information transmitted is intended only for the person or entity to which it is addressed and may contain confidential and/or privileged
material.  Any review, retransmission, dissemination or other use of, or taking of any action in reliance upon, this information by persons or
entities other than the intended recipient is prohibited.   If you received this in error, please contact the sender and delete the material from any
computer.