It’s a sad day for the Interwebs today. How far will it go when people who don’t understand the way the web works get their go. I’ve been reading the story about the Blockshopper case, where one very stupid law firm sued a startup for not linking “correctly” to their site.
This really makes me sad. The stupid law firm should have been happy that they even got a link to their sorry ass website. No, the stupid lawyers don’t get the web, and sue the startup for not using the “correct” anchor tag.
From the story: (Read the rest of the story at Arstechnica)
During the summer of 2008, BlockShopper linked to the Web profile of a prominent real estate lawyer in a posting that highlighted his purchase of a condo, and noted that Jones Day had purchased homes/condos/apartments on Chicago’s North Side…..For reasons still unbeknownst to the world, however, Jones Day was very displeased by these links and filed a lawsuit against BlockShopper in September of 2008, leveling the odd charge of trademark dilution…..
….The complaint cites the issue as “confusion”—the claim was that people visiting BlockShopper and seeing the links in question might assume that it was somehow officially related to Jones Day. This, of course, was a ridiculous claim, but BlockShopper tried to play nice and consented to a temporary restraining order that required the site to remove the links….
….According to TechDirt, the judge even allegedly put pressure on BlockShopper to back down by saying, “Do you know, young man, how much money it’s going to cost you to defend yourselves against Jones Day?”…
More and more people get sued over how they link to other websites. I’m a strong believer of free speech, and especially if it’s on my own website. I control the links on my site, nobody else can tell me what to do or how to link. I think these lawyers from Jones Day are very stupid and don’t get the Internet. If they start sueing all people who link to their website not with their approved anchor tag, they better prepare for some real nasty Google bombs and start sending those C&D letters to a whole lot of bloggers.
As the story just broke on Techmeme, a whole lot of bloggers will jump on this one. There is already a hate site domain claimed: JonesDaySucks.com. This will keep them busy for quite some time! Dumb asses.
Disclaimer: Before I get into trouble and JonesDay is sueing me, I would like to state that I call them stupid for the claim of having the right to control the way people link to their website. These are my thoughts expressed on my website. I reserve the right to publish all letters or emails send to me about this case.
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