Slashdot Mirror
Google sued as PetsWarehouse Lawsuit Continues.
Ikari Gendou writes "In April, Slashdot reported that Robert Novak, owner of Internet pet store Pets Warehouse filed a $15,000,000US lawsuit against several individuals who made comments about his company's poor service on an Internet mailing list. Also named in it and in the suit that followed were the owner of the mailing list, the owners of several informational sites about the lawsuit, the owners of other forums where the lawsuit was discussed, the attorney for the defense, and several sites that merely ran banner ads promoting the defense fund set up for the lawsuit. Some defendents settled out of fear, and were forced to pay cash, transfer their personal domain names to Novak, or even run banner ads for Petswarehouse on their websites. Now, the attorney for the defense has announced that in round three of the lawsuit, Google has been sued, as well as several other sites that have carried news about the lawsuit, such as search engine Judge-For-Yourself.com and pet stores DoctorDog.com and FerretStore.com. Robert Novak is representing himself in this lawsuit, and thus it is effectively costing him nothing to persue this campaign of harassment. He's already gotten several thousand dollars from settlements and cost the defendents considerably more than that in legal fees. More details should be posted soon here, including court documents that tell why Google was added to the suit."
Just sue your slashdot "freaks". http://yro.slashdot.org/~Knightfall/freaks :)
-
ping -f 255.255.255.255 # if only
The blinking links alone tell me that he's a complete idiot.
I bet he was teased in high school and wants to get back at all the bullies.
*sigh*
If a and b in c, and a can create b, and a can create a, and b can create b, and b cannot create a, then a created c.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
Now he's suing people that can actually afford to fight back. I hope he gets the pants beaten off of him by Google's lawyers.
-- Dr. Eldarion --
Oh dear god I hope that he sues /.
;)
/me/ now?)
Somehow I don't think Pets Warehouse has the same clout as Microsoft or Scientology.. I expect Mr. Taco would rally the troops and fuck Mr. Novack up very severely.
Of course, I think google may do the same.
Hey google.. wanna own a shitty pet store? (oh god, is he going to sue
If not, maybe next week they will be
Nothing is more idiotic than a legal system that allows one person to abridge the security and personal freedom of another, but exercising their own right to continually sue or press frivolous charges against individuals/organizations that cross their path.
We NEED a law to deal with idiotic lawsuits. That is to say, one that carries penalties for those use lawsuits as a continual source of revenue. I think I read earlier that there are some laws regarding individuals that are sue happy, why not make it federal (and get the Canadian government to apply one as well, although Canada seems less lawsuit-crazy than the US).
Lawyers: Who do you want to sue today? - phorm
Ya be careful people! Just linking to google could get /. into a whole lot of trouble.
Despite years of my hard work and overtime and brown nosing, my wife has a job offer with a starting salary that would make you cry, and hasn't even graduated law school!
I'll tell you what the problem is, WHY AREN'T YOU IN LAW SCHOOL?!?!
P.S. don't forget about the bonus if you meet all your billable hours.
In the future, I would want to not be isolated from my friends in the Space Station.
One day, a man was hit by a bicycle. The man got so angry, he demanded the cyclist pay him five dollars. And the cyclist did so because he was too busy to argue.
Then the man thought 'Maybe I should throw myself in from of another bicycle to get five dollars'. And so he did.
Five bicycles later, he thinks 'If I get five dollars from bicycles, I can get twenty from cars'. And he threw himself into on comming trafic.
And was squashed by a pickup truck.
well i got on there and bought a 50 pound bag of "OL' ROY" dog food for my german shepherd general rommel. well, it took like EIGHT MONTHS for it to even get there. so when it did, general rommel was pretty damn hungry. so I opened up the bag of "OL' ROY" and poured a bowl and gave it to him. he ate it. AND THEN I NOTICED that it was not dog food in there, but rat poison! PET WAREHOUSE is shipping RAT POISON in their pet food! general rommel promptly keeled over and croaked.
i sent a mail to mr. novak and he told me to go eff myself with a shovel. now THAT is what i call customer service. anyway, i've got a new dog now, I called her eva braun, and i will NOT be ordering any more "OL' ROY" from PET WAREHOUSE
your buddy
--gbd
Hey, I really would not suggest slashdot linking to Novak's website. As you know, the "slashdot effect" will bring his site to a crawl, losing potential customers. He'll also have a hefty bandwidth bill from his ISP.
:)
So, whatever you do, try not to visit his website. Don't hit Shift-reload over and over again. Don't ask all your friends to visit it and hit shift-reload over and over again.
I'm surprised that so many people are settling if he's representing himself. Usually that's a pretty good sign that, with just a little legal help yourself, you could take him on and, if the case is as open-and-shut as /. says, successfully defend yourself. It's one thing when the plaintiff has high-powered legal help; it's a lot less intimidating if the plaintiff is some guy with a grudge in his basement.
Eventually somebody will put up a real legal fight against this guy, he'll make some dumb legal mistake, and he'll lose big. It's too bad that the little guys had to get thwacked before that could happen. They really should have banded together in defense - they could have hired a real lawyer and put him in his place pretty swiftly if they'd worked together. It sounds like he picked them off of the herd one-by-one, gradually building up steam, and now thinks that he's ready to take on the big boys.
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
"Dear judge-
Some mean person made very nasty remarks about my crappy online store. Since we now live in a world where every single whining crybaby threatens to sue somebody over the most trivial of things, I feel I want to sue a person who made some comments on their website. Sure, my knowledge of the legal system is little to none, but I really want to sue these guys because they are so mean! I have obviously never done any research on libel, or I would've learned the following information:
Ideas and opinions, whether true of false, cannot constitutionally be subject to libel claims.
However, my lawyer, who also works the night shift at the local Dairy Queen, says I can sue for MILLIONS of dollars! I tend to believe him, because I once saw him wear an expensive suit and I think that makes him smart.
Sincerely,
Mr Novak"
This is my sig. Its pathetic.
On the surface, this seems to me like a stupid lawsuit that cannot hold in court, since it is clearly trying to violate the consitutional right of free speech (i.e.: "you cannot say I suck, I'll sue you").
However, *maybe* (and I repeat, just maybe), if beyond any reasonable doubt the guy can prove that the people who made the first comments made them with the premeditated malicious intention of bringing down his business, then that's another matter. However that still does not give him the right to sue everyone else (if that holds in court, Microsoft could be suing the slashdot parent company on the basis that they're hosting anti-microsoft discussions by some users).
In the end, my guess is that the case can not hold in the supreme court, if it ever gets there. if he wins a few cases it's probably because he's got tons of money to spend on lawyers or just some very good lawyers, or everyone else's lawyers suck.
The comments are about "Pet Warehouse", which is here while the link is for Pets Warehouse.
What happened, according to the Salon article, linked in the original /. article is that the "s" was left off.
More understandable since Pet Warehouse is a reputable outfit predating the dotcom boom. I've dealt with them lots of times.
You can't. I have a pending patent on the underlying method used is "suing everybody"
...is a good offense.
/.'er can provide a simpler summary on his/her his web page for reference. In addition to the defense fund's site. We also may wish to provide links to the mailing list comments that started this.
Perhaps a good round of public boycott will enough to deter Mr. Novak from suing anyone who criticizes his store. Start by emailing all your pet-owning friends and informing them of what has happened. Ask them to stop purchasing from Petswearhouse until this kind of senseless lawsuit'ing has stopped... Also perhaps a
Basically give people information to make an informed decision.
managers...why god invented purgatory
In such a litigious society, where lawyers chase after every dollar they can, and where "greed is good" is a mantra, is anyone truly surprised at this?
It's a sad reflection of American society that it has turned into a victim culture where nobody is ever to blame for their own shortcomings but is instead a victim of the malignant actions of anyone or everyone else.
It's an easy out - why bother seriously examining where your business plan was flawed or where your process broke down when you can simply point the finger at someone else and say "I would have succeeded if it wasn't for you".
Part of the problem is that there is little to discourage malicious and/or spurious litigation. Some sort of penalty for repeatedly taking out this sort of action would be helpful but it's hard to imagine that happening any time soon.
The fact is that many companies will rather settle lawsuits like these ones before they get to court even if they are without merit. The rationale behind this is ironic - lawsuits (even ridiculous ones) bring down share prices, and which "greed is good" CEO is going to let that happen for the sake of a few thousand dollars?
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
"slashdottin my site? thats a paddle'in" (jasper)
Wonderfull name. Brings to mind a large building stuffed with pets from top to bottom. Hi-Lo's and Forklifts shuffling boxes of animals about. Over in the far rear corner is the "Scratch and Dent" bin full of great bargains.
"God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
Well the first mistakes were the people who settled. If the guy is representing himself, one good lawyer could easily outwit him in court (or maybe Im giving lawyers too much credit..). The guy is a public business, he is not immune from slander. What hes doing is the exact thing that pisses me off the most about things like the RIAA and BestBuys/Fry store policies, ect. Its companies telling us what we can and cannot do, no longer is the customer always right. Instead, we the consumers, are seen as stupid people who have to be put in our place by some snot nosed store clerk or some half assed executive hiding behind "company policy". BS... its on paper, paper does not bind us physically. This is exactly what this guy is trying to pull. he is trying to take away a consumers right to free speech. They shouldnt settle, they should just tell him to kiss their ass, and until the day that he can physically force them to not advertise the fact that a vendor did not come through with a promised transaction, he can take his lawsuit papers and shove them up his a$$. Second, they should have filed a complaint the Chamber of Commerce and the Better Business Bureua, thus having a registered and documented complaint against the company, then his lawsuit would have no grounds. Of course... maybe I should keep quite, he might try and sue me... oh no....
create a mirror on slashdot:
I would like to voice my opinion about a company that I have had
experience with, PetSwarehouse. Based on true experience, I feel that
they suck. According to their Better Business Bureau rating of
unsatisfactory (the bureau's lowest), I see that I am not alone in
this opinion--a conclusion arrived to by factual data.
Furthermore, I understand that free speech is right of all Americans,
protected by the constitution.
"Libel is injury to reputation.
There is only one and unconditional defense to a civil action for
libel: that the facts stated are PROVABLY TRUE." --AP Stylebook and
Libel Manual.
Reputations are earned from true experiences, not fabricated online,
Mr. Novak. Everyone has the right to share and express their true
experiences and the feelings and opinions drawn from these factual
events.
contribute to the defense fund: http://www.petsforum.com/psw/Fund.htm
-- john
New to Google! It's Google Pet Warehouse! Now you can search and purchase all your pet needs right from your favorite search engine!
Want to know how we did it? Sure, we'll tell you! Some moron sued us and we won! We got his pet store and now it makes us a mint!
There are only 10 kinds of people in this world... those who understand binary and those who don't
here :)
"Old man yells at systemd"
Sounds like an interesting Half-Life mod..
OMG, THIS d00d IS WALLHAX0R1NG!!!!
Price, Quality, Time. Pick none. What, you thought you had a choice?
It's now been changed, /.'s front page summary had stated that Novak was "defending himself". It is now changed to "representing himself". Once again /. plays revisionist news. :)
Article X: The powers not delegated... by the Constitution...are reserved...to the people
IANALBMWISTBO, (I am not a lawyer, but my wife is studying to be one: Why does this deserve an acronym? becuase this makes me a VERY dangerous person to have a conversation about: I know just enough legal terms to sound like a pro to the unwashed masses, and to sound like a total moron to the bar association)
But here goes: SUMMARY JUDGEMENT.
You can file suits till the cows come home... BUT WTF?! Summons, subpoena, discovery, WITH NO PRIMA FACIA CASE!
How is he gonna establish jurisdiction?! Suing google?
Whatever-
SECTION 11 of fed civil procedure for FRADULENTLY suing for defamation... and judges can fine people for filing frivilous suits!
Challenge this biatch and get him slapped the fuck down.
In the future, I would want to not be isolated from my friends in the Space Station.
Let's hope that no spammers pick up on his email address or mailing details:
Honestly though, how can a piece of sh*t like this guy keep taking up court time with these suits? Espscially with news sites that are merely reporting the proceedings of cases? It's ridiculous - I'm sure the RIAA are already sending him job application forms so he help them in their quest to crack down on freedom and the causes of freedom!
Code, Hardware, stuff like that.
You know, I was going to post something informative or maybe even (+3 Insightful), but this nausious feeling just won't go away. I can understand suing someone for libel ... even if I do think it's just customers sharing their experiences. Considering the net-based nature of his business, people posting in online forums about how bad he is would strike me the same as people marching outside the front door of the local pet store carrying signs and shouting slogans. But to then start suing the people who carried news of the origional lawsuit? Or the ones who carried the ad banners for the legal defense fund? What's next, sue the WayBack machine? Sheesh... sounds like someone isn't selling enough Kibbles n' Bits to pay the bills...
/., then you have enough time to do this as well.
I hope the good folks at Google countersue him, and I also hope that this spurs all the people who've had bad experiences with this place to file a group or class-action lawsuit, and I hope it hurts him good.
Does anyone know the results of the origional lawsuits? (not including the &*%(#&'s who settled)
And does anyone have the links to the legal defense fund, and any of the BB's that posted the comments? They deserve links on my homepage (made and hosted in Canada, where we don't take this kinda crap, eh?)
Now, I'm going to write the nice man an email explaining why I'll be boycotting his business, and why I'll be encouraging others to as well. Shouldn't you, too? If you have enough time to post on
(Sig 0.5b)
I'll defend your right to spew fruitless venom and baseless idiocy with my dying breath, just as you must defend my right to call you an asshole.
If I knew the wedgies I gave you back in 6th grade would have resulted in this . . . I might have taken a moments pause.
Being involved in the Aquaria community for years, I've heard essentially that this is one of those guys that liked to sue people (obviously). But he's one of those guys if you give him any critism he thinks its slander or liable, and sues. Apparently he is entirely unaware of freedom of speech and the difference between critism and slander. If he provides bad service, and people tell about it, thats critism. If he provides excellent service, and people lie to say he provided poor service, thats slander. I sure hope some of these people counter-sue, and get lawyers to do it.
He's just milking settlements, its digusting.
..There's a-dooin's a-transpirin'
I don't think he cares whether he looks like a fool or not. Remember that "Seinfeld" episode where George gets a job by pretending that he was disabled, and then after he's found out, continues showing up at the job because his employers are contractually bound to keep him on for a full year? His boss hates George and makes his life miserable, his coworkers all tell him to drop dead in the hallways, but George doesn't care--his paycheck is worth more to him than his dignity or his reputation, and as long as he gets it, George thinks that he's won.
Same with his fellow Novak, I guess. He must know that the lawsuits are frivolous and that his name is mud among everyone who's ever heard of him. No matter--he keeps suing and keeps collecting from people who can't afford a protracted legal action, and so by his lights, he's won.
hyacinthus.
Remember it doesn't pay to sue people on welfare.
1, many don't respond to non-personal mail.
2, half of them pretend their just some flatmate if a stranger such as a bailife or summons server knocks on the door. It becomes habit through years of not paying traffic fines & getting cought on the train without a ticket.
3, they've got bugger all assets, at most maybe a old unregisted car that's either seeing out its days as a shed in the front yard, or, but for a old coat hanger & some bog, is due to see out its days as a shed in the front yard.
4, you can't garnish their incomes.
I know, I've been sued 3 times, & in each case they just gave up.
Hopefully this won't have a negative affect on another online Pet store: Drs. Foster and Smith's Pet Warehouse. Their website being "www.petwarehouse.com" and this buffoon's being "www.petswarehouse.com".
In my experience, they are a very reliable source for all kinds of supplies, and it would be a shame for people to associate their site with this litigation crazy moron.
Xavodim.com
This is an interesting case and I hope that the courts will take action to address these abusive legal actions. There are actually mechanisms in the law to accomplish this, ranging from a court order barring a litigant from filing further motions or actions on a certain issue to a court declaration that a litigant is characteristically abusive (I can't recall the term for this, but it is assuredly legal latinate). The latter requires the censured litigant to gain court approval before filing any further actions.
Check out the following case; it's very interesting.
http://www.law.fsu.edu/library/flsupct/sc94012/op
According to this followup post to the original complaint about them...
5 /msg00213.html
http://fins.actwin.com/aquatic-plants/month.20010
I made a rather unfortunate typo in my last message - I was referring to *Pets* Warehouse, not Pet Warehouse. My apologies (to you and to Pet Warehouse!).
until false; do lynx -source http://oh, I don't know/ > /dev/null ; sleep $(( RANDOM / 1024 + 1 )); done
and then accidently hit enter in a Bash shell...
You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.
Let's look at what he's claiming:
$1.00 in nominal settlement
$10,000,000.00 in compensatory settlement
$5,000,000.00 in other.
So, maybe people are giving him a buck (the nominal settlement amount) and telling him to go away.
Anyway, once a fucktard, always a fucktard.
What a dope:-
login: test
password: test
Feel free to post your "comments" without having to give personal details to register!!!
Code, Hardware, stuff like that.
Robert Novak is representing himself in this lawsuit, and thus it is effectively costing him nothing to persue this campaign of harassmentIANAL, so correct me if I'm wrong, but if his lawsuits are found frivolous doesn't he have to pay the legal bills of the people he's suing? If thats the case it seems all he's doing is committing financial suicide. Large companys like Google tend to have lawyers by the boatload and given that he's representing himself it's a pretty good bet that no lawyer will touch the case (read: he's got nothing on them).
Life is tough when you're a litigious numpty.
I'm old enough to remember when discussions on Slashdot were well informed.
PetsWarehouse BBB Rating
The Better Business Bureau of Metropolitan New York, Inc. has provided an unsatisfactory rating, the Bureau's lowest, for PetsWarehouse. The BBB site states:
"This firm operates an affiliated business on the internet offering products through its Copaigue location. This firm has received 21 complaints in the last 36 months, of which 11 of those 21 complaints were filed in the last 12 months. Complaints to the Bureau have alleged: 1) nondelivery of ordered merchandise and 2) credit or billing problems. This firm has a pattern of not responding to complaints to its attention by the Bureau."
Thanks to file sharing, I purchase more CDs
Thanks to the RIAA, I buy them used...
If some wench with a few hours' paralegal experience can cause problems, why can't the average Joe use the same technique in defense?
In spite of the saying "a man representing himself has a fool for a client", I assume a person with nothing to loose should be able to defend himself.
Take me, for example. I make a modest salary, have a home, wife/kids, car etc. I'd be hard pressed to come up with more than a grand or two to retain a lawyer if I were ever sued. For a civil suit like this, what could I really loose? I can't fathom a judge forcing a family out on the street, or taking their only means of transport. Can a judgement that would make a family destitute really be made against them? (Cite/link example, if there are, please.)
Obviously, IANAL. I'm just curious. Is the only option for us middle class folk to either settle for what we can afford or start a defense fund? I can't accept that -- it says that society sucks far more than I currently believe.
Would some lawyer (or someone who's gone the pro se route) speak up. An online resource (one really geard towards pro se defense) would be awesome.
Method of processing duck feet
No web based busisness ever tries to sue slashdot. I mean, come on, we regularly melt down the servers of people we LIKE. Imagine what a force for doom this buncha angry geeks could be if focused.
All Troll + "offtopic" mods are meta moderated as "Unfair", because you abused the system.
Novak is a pathetic moron. If he comes after me, I will drop him like a bad habit. He already read the mention of him on my site.
Part of the problem is that the people did settle instead of filing a motion to dismiss or a summary judgment motion. I can understand why they would settle for a nuisance amount. If a motion for summary judgment had been done, the case would have been kicked.
Fight Spammers!
Point 1: :)
You obviously don't understand how this works...
you are correct, sir! I thought my clarification (IANALBMWISTBO) meant that heretofor be ignored as a raving moron!
Instead you get paperwork out the wazzo, all billed at 200 dollars an hour. Few companies, every the very rich are willing to even deal with it
How much paper work does it take for a law firm to send a letter saying "Dear Mr Novak. BRING IT THE FUCK ON. Mr. I Sue-you, esquire"
He doesn't have a legal leg to stand on.
lets look at this case- this isn't about SONY who can TOTALLY write off $30mill or that there may be a technical point of merit,
this is about Mr and Mrs domain name holder standing their ground. Novak is suing pro se, so defend yourself pro se. Counter sue pro se.
You won't have to argue in front of the judge, s/he will spend too much time ripping Novak a new one for this frivilous shit!
Yes lawyers are taught that going in front of a judge is the worst thing. But I can't imagine a lawyer saying "wow, this guy is filing all this stuff. I'm scared. Lets' settle!" I see them saying "this is so much bullshit, that I'm gonna try to take my fees directly out of Novak's ass."
Just becuase Novak files papers doesn't mean it will get past prima facia. You sit on your ass, you don't see 1 day in the court room.
In the future, I would want to not be isolated from my friends in the Space Station.
But you /. freakos are maxing out his bandwidth, apparently. Don't any of you DARE set auto-reload on that site! That's MY strategy.
This reverse-psychology was brought to you by...
As they say up here, "mange la merde!"
Using an ad-filtering proxy will keep him from deriving that benefit from a slashdotting. Running something like while true; do lynx -dump http://www.petswarehouse.com >/dev/null; done will also result in no ad views.
20 January 2017: the End of an Error.
In investigating the petswarehouse website I discovered this link which lists the 20th page of products that have the letter 'a' in the name.
Now, don't everybody hit that up a lot because selecting everything with 'a' from their database, and then jumping to the 20th page is a lot of work and it would cause unneeded strain on their website.
However, it's very useful if you are interested in viewing the depth of the petswarehouse catalog.
Hey, that's a libelous insult to all of us who were teased in high school, which I think is a majority of the /. population!
lol! It is horribly slow, took about 5 minutes to come up for me. Although, I just left it in the back and kept reading other stuff, checking it every minute or two.
Once you are able to get the main page to load though, scroll down a tad to their message board section, it's hilarious:
New Forum Messages--Join us
Welcome Novak is a moron
Welcome www.petwarehouse.com, not www.petsw...
Welcome Robert Novak sues again!!!
Welcome Robert Novak ate my baby!
Just Conversation seeing eye dogs
Dog Behavior What food is Best
Dog Behavior Wellness Food
Marine Saltwater fish adding calcium
Hey, somebody put the Scientology OT3 documents up on the PetsWarehouse message board. Maybe we can get those two lovable organizations to turn on each other.
...phil
"For a list of the ways which technology has failed to improve our quality of life, press 3."
Well, as of 10:21am (Pacific Whatever Time) the server could no longer be found by my browser, despite being able to find it repeatedly since 10:07am, so it appears that your warnings have been in vain.
It's a shame really, I was kind of curious about that hamster thing...
Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around.
Pardon me for replying to you, but I want this to be near the top, where everyone, especially ROBERT NOVAK, head meatball in charge.
Want to really make him hurt? Just point out that his store really is horrible. Service? Sucks. Price? Sucks! There are much better stores that have better stock, lower prices, and excellent customer service. Two such examples are:
That Pet Place
Drs. Foster & Smith
(Note: I am not affiliated in ANY way with either of those stores mentioned. They had nothing to do with being written here. I put them here. They're not the droids you're looking for. I AM. All of the above is my very own personal opinion, and I stand by it.)
So come get me, big boy! Sue my frigging ass off for enjoying my first ammendment rights. I even live in New York. And I'm bored. It costs me just as much nothing to be sued by you as it does for you to sue me. Let's just frigging GO. =)
Don't forget kids! You shouldn't redirect your 5 spa^H^H^Hhotmail accounts to his email address, either! =)
~Dalcius
Rome wasn't burnt in a day.
until false; do lynx -source http://oh, I don't know/ > /dev/null ; sleep $(( RANDOM / 1024 + 1 )); done
and then accidently hit enter in a Bash shell...
You do realize that this is probably classed as terrorism right? But no matter, I'm doing it, because people just hitting shift-reload get bored, whereas scripts can just be forked into the background. Right now, I should think Novak is a little pissed. If a few thousand people just ran that script when they got up in the morning, it would really start to cause him grief. Being vigilantism it's absolutely not legal or even morally correct - but it is quite good fun ;)
I wasn't even going to bother clicking /that/ link 'cuz it didn't have anything I wanted to see. But I'm always game to contribute to a good slashdotting if it's a worthy cause.
"Avoid employing unlucky people - throw half of the pile of CVs in the bin without reading them." -- David Brent
'The amount of hate mail I get has virtually trippled in the last year,' Mr. Novak said in a statement to the press, 'this has got to stop.'.
The damages in the suit are unspecified yet, but mr Novak's lawyers have stated that one of the remedies they will seek is that Mr. Novak no 2 have his name legally changed to something less confusing. They alledge that he changed his name to "Robert Novak" in 1996, just as Bob Novak was gaining prominence for his appearances on CNN.
'We have received reports that his name before that was "Roberto Perdikakis"' a representative of mr. Novak's said Wednesday morning.
Ñ'
Which troops would he rally? Do you think that a platoon of geeks bearing down on Novak's mansion would change things?
No, but a quarter million geeks pounding away at his website address every 12 hours (when the story gets inadvertantly re-posted) can keep his bandwidth maxed out without letting any "customers" through.
Plus, slashdot viewers are not what most people would consider "shy" in the online world, so if given a rousing "Sons of Scotland" speech from Mr. Taco, it's probable that you'd soon have millions of messageboard posts and emails to friends and quick-n-dirty websites thrown up on stupid/clever pun-ful domain names. We could bleed Novak dry just on the cost of all the paper he'd need to file suit against all these individuals, and their hosting companies, and the search engines who list them, and the PC manufacturers who sold them the computers they commited the 'harassment' from, and their lawyers, and ... their pets, for not frequenting his establishment...
Sometimes the best solution to morale problems is just to fire all the unhappy people.
Over here, there is no such thing as punitive damages. One can only sue for real and quantifyable damage. [stuff deleted] The result? There are no cases in my countries legal history, of people sueing because they spilled hot coffee on their leg, tried to dry a poodle in the microwave, or any of that sort of idiocy.
The McDonald's case is a bad example- do a Google search. When people talk about tort reform they always trot out this overhyped example, as if there are no better ones to use.
That lady was originally willing to settle for $20,000 to cover medical expenses for the skin grafts, because she was broke and couldn't afford the medical bills. McDonald's made a counteroffer of $800 and refused to admit any responsibility or to adjust their thermostats. A mediator recommended settling for $225,000, but McDonald's refused and went to trial.
What inflamed the jury was the fact that McDonald's had done a risk-benefit analysis on this issue. Several hundred people had gotten burned by the coffee, and at least one burn center had requested that McDonald's turn its coffee down. But overheating the coffee improved the aroma and allowed the use of a cheaper, inferior grade of beans. (When the coffee is burning your mouth you can't taste it.) McDonald's had concluded that the risk from settling the occasional suit would not offset the profits they would make from higher sales.
It also didn't help McDonald's that they were caught lying about this and the existence of the other claims in court. The jury set compensatory damages at $200,000 minus $40,000 for the lady's own contributory negligence, and then added the cost of two days' of coffee sales- which turned out to be $2.7 million. A judge lowered that to $480,000 and it was finally settled for an undisclosed amount.
The poodle in the microwave appears to be an urban legend. Maybe you can provide a link to a believable reference. But to me this looks like you've got issues with stupid old ladies.
Be warned that the media is extremely willing to overhype anecdotes of individuals abusing their rights to sue corporations. In fact those cases get pounced upon, like when that fat guy brought that moronic suit against fast food restaurants for making him fat. We got saturation coverage of that case. But these things go both ways. Abuses of the legal system by litigious corporations against individuals (and other corporations) are just as frequent, but they don't receive as much media attention, nor are they presented as evidence that the system is broken and in need of legislative reform.
This guy is obviously an idiot and loser who doesn't know wtf he's doing.
You can't sue people for stating their opinion, or even for criticizing you or your services harshely or unfairly.
You can only sue people for defamation if they knowingly state a stark falsity about you or your company. Saying the service sucks -- which it probably does -- is a matter of opinion, not a factual statement.
If someone said that something as a matter of fact about him or his company that he can prove is false, that may be grounds for a defamation lawsuite. However, unless he can show that such statement caused him a loss of business, he has little or no grounds for any punative damages.
The fact that this guy seems to be making his living by suing people without grounds and hoping they settle seems statement enough about the quality of his services.
social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen
I wonder if there really are bots crawling here. Only one way to find out:
slashbottest@quickp.ath.cx
-no broken link
Is it really "winning", when Google removes all links to your web site?
I guess you could always live with print advertising... that really works well on the Internet, doesn't it?
Clue: URLs in a print advertisements aren't "clickable"...
-- Terry
WHIOS PetsWarehouse.com
Administrative Contact
Robert Novak-> bob@petswarehouse.com
Pets Warehouse
1550 Sunrise Hwy
Copiague, ny 11726
US
Phone 631-789-5400
Fax 631.789.9340
Life is the leading cause of death in America.
As much as I despise what Mr. Novak did with the whole fish complaint thing, a quick read of the ACTUAL LAWSUIT shows that this new suit has NOTHING to do with free speech or negative comments from unhappy customers. This is a completely new and UNRELATED lawsuit, that just happens to be from the same guy. Petswarehouse.Com is suing Google, and other search engines and petstores because they are using the Petswarehouse.com trademark to steal customers. Google is included in the suit because they are allowing paid placement customers (competing petstores) to use the PetsWarehouse.Com trademark as a keyword to display their ads. The competing petsores themselves are alleged to have put the petswarehouse.com trademark inside their meta-tags to attract customers. The suit also alleges that PetsWarehouse complained about the trademark infringement to Google, but that Google refused to abide by their own policy and remove the infringing material.
I hate to say it, but Mr. Novak may actually have a valid trademark suit here!
There is nothing so pathetic as seeing a beautiful young theory roughed up by a tough gang of facts.
I have recently learned of a company with a rather similar name to yours, Petswarehouse.com.
This other company has enganged in numerous frivolous lawsuits against ordinary Internet consumers for speaking their mind. Information here.
Due to the similarity of your company's name to his, I wanted to inform you that their could be a risk of potential customers confusing your site with his. All the bad publicity his site has recieved could potentially hurt your business, as potential customers get confused, and think your company is the one performing these consumer-unfriendly, immoral acts.
You may want to bring it to the attention of your lawyers that there is a company with a confusingly similar name, that has generated a large amount of bad publicity that could potentially hurt your business. I'm sure your lawyers can advise you of an appropriate course of action.
Thank you for your time, A concerned citizen.
Son,
It ain't about legal. It's about ethical. Civilized human beings do not do things simply because they CAN under a flawed legal system. What keeps society functioning at all is that most people follow their own lights and do what they consider to be right, not what the idiot legal system tells them they are allowed to do. In short, your attitude is barbaric.
[signed]
Not anonymous and not a coward.
Hic iacet Arthurus, rex quondam rexque futurus.
Main news/defense fund, full dockets
.net and .org versions of this domain, by the way)
Other defense fund page
Defense Fund merchandise
Discussion forum for the lawsuit
PetsWarehouseSucks.com (Novak bought up the
Aquatic Plants digest
Google search with many relevant results
Rec.Aquaria.Freshwater.Plants
Between all those pages, you should be able to find plenty of links to archives of the messages in question, full court documents, links to news coverage of the story, etc. etc. etc. If you have any interest in aquatic plants or planted aquariums, check the link to the Aquatic Plants mailing list, where all this began. You'll find all the original posts, plus some early discussion of the lawsuit. Also, you can find plenty of stuff in the archive of rec.aquaria.freshwater.plants, including the rantings and ravings of Mr. Novak himself, as well as posts from a few people who support him and happen to have EXACTLY the same spelling and grammer that he does...
There's all kinds of fun things to discover about this case. For example, the NY Better Business Bureau gave PetsWarehouse its worst possible rating for its business practices. Mr. Novak claims that the BBB is *actually* talking about the retail store, not the website, and as a result, he's threatened to actually SUE the Better Business Bureau.
Mr. Novak is on very shaky legal ground. He's been reprimanded by judges (since he's filed three seperate lawsuits and several ammendments, there are a lot of judges involved) for not having a clue what he's doing. He told a magazine that he considers suing people to be "his hobby", and a profitable one, because he lives right down the street from the courthouse and most people can't afford to travel to his venue to fight the lawsuits. When Slashdot first covered the lawsuit in April, someone posted a comment sayign that they new Mr. Novak, and he told the poster that he has a lawyer in the family who gives him advice on filing baseless lawsuits for extra income.
Also, one of Mr. Novak's big claims in this lawsuit is "trademark infringement" (since we ALL know that saying "I don't like XYZ" is a violation of XYZ's trademark, right??), however, there's some question of whether he owns the trademark at all. He used Pets Warehouse as a "common law" trademark (IANAL, but I think that means he never actually filed the trademark, he just started using it and that entitles him to some legal protection), however, when he filed bankruptcy in the 90's, he didn't list any intellectual property that he wanted to keep on his bankruptcy application, thus it's entirely likely that he lost any trademark he might have had on the name during the bankruptcy.
He also refuses to actually serve papers against any of the defendents who live in California, because California has a strong SLAPP law that would bite him in the ass he if tried to actually bring any California residents into the lawsuit.
I'm not the only one who thinks all this is very, very crazy.
It's a shame I left out the words "can see this" from the first line, even though I got all the HREF's right, and even closed my /B's and /I's... I'd sound like less of a tard if that part was readable... ;p
... it was one of the selling points for me. Then the order arrived complete with an invoice stating that shipping was $18.50! When I called them today to straighten this out, they informed me that the original quote was wrong and that I was stuck with the $18.50.
Of course, I'm never going to get sued if he knows I want him to sue me. Hmmmm....
Lawsuits scare me to death. I cave in at the slightest legal threat, or even peer pressure. I have a room in the back of my house where I store loose shopping bags full of cash, and I would never speak to a good lawyer. I even paid a spammer for a penis enlarger.
Oh hell, that's too easy to figure out. He might... crack my code. Perhaps I could then sue under the DMCA!
Maybe I don't understand this whole thing fully. I read The Defense Fund and it seems like Dan Resler, the poor bastard that accidentally started this whole thing, actually ended up paying $4,150 to Novak. Of course, he was sued for $15,000,000, so percentage-wise he got off pretty well, but $4,150 isn't really pocket change either. And if you read Dan's origional post, it really just seems like he got some bad plants, overcharged for shipping, and customer service told him to go take a flying leap. You can read his origional post here. I'll even quote the relevant bits:
My 6th call was last week, and when they realized I was calling about a plant order they proclaimed "They will be shipped on Monday". Click.
On my order confirmation I was quoted a shipping price of $7.50. Nice
Quoted without permission, of course. Christ, maybe Dan will sue me now. I argue fair use in advance. (Dan, don't! Slashdot is on your side!)
I mean, how in the world can you sue anyone over that? You want a bad analogy? I like Coke. (I actually kinda like Pepsi... so... frig.) Okay, I like Diet Coke. I *hate* diet Pepsi. I don't know why. I can say this:
Diet Pepsi tastes bad. I opened a can, tasted it, and said, "Yeeeech!"
Thank God for the Constitution. Thank God for the freedom of speech. Despite all the bad press, America is a pretty darn nice place to live.
Nah, waiting $RANDOM seconds between hits leaves us with a non organized attack- what if I use one of those glass birds full of Freon 11 that keep bobbing up and down for the water to click my reload button- are they going to lock me up, the glass bird, or the keyboard for "being in the wrong place at the wrong time?" Cause I can say that I don't know the bird, but all he's got is the right to remain silent.
A Freedom Fighter would do this in bash:
wh1le:;do wget http://some.site>/dev/null;d0ne
if the web server is worth its salt, it'll stop listening to you after like 4 seconds.
slashdot: where everyone yells sarcastic metaphors to themselves to understand the issue
Just reading about this is causing me much Mental Anguish. Can I sue?
His message board. Last I checked, the board was moderated and all messages had to be pre-approved by a moderator, but it looks like one fellow has found his way around that. Congrats, Mr. Lignatron.
Don't forget to check out his message board's terms of use. Oddly enough, you're not allowed to mention the fact that the owner of the company sues his customers (and everyone else, for that matter). Any mention of the lawsuit that makes it onto his board is deleted very quickly. That doesn't mean you shouldn't try, though. Even if the message gets stuck in an approval queue and never get posted by a moderator, as seems to be the general case, one of his moderators will still have to take the time to delete it. And I get the feeling that his moderators might not even know about the lawsuit, or else they won't associate with him.
One piece of advice to those attacking his message board: if the goal is to warn his customers about what his company is up to, linking to Petsforum, TheDefenseFund, or this Slashdot story would be MUCH more effective than linking to goatse.cx. Our goal is to bring his behavior into public light, not to gross people out. That's what we have Slashdot for. I know old habits die hard, but this is a chance for us to put our trolling/crapflooding skills to good use, and work for a higher goal.
It's funny how after the lawsuit business started, Bob Novak changed the name of his message board to "The Civilized Pet Forum." Yeah, right.
Then there are the requistite requisite mailto links. What good would this post be without the requisite mailto links? Keep these requisite mailto links in mind for future use. These requisite mailto links make the world go round!
Archived mirror of PetsWarehouse page.
Archived company info.
Archived map to store
Domain registration info
GNU Wget - a website downloading tool. Useful for accessing sites that are Slashdotted, by hitting the site over, and over, and over, and over, and over...
Netcraft Info for Petswarehouse
An individual who was responsible for the creation of the Comcast consumer advocacy catagory on Yahoo! was successful in finally getting Comcast to drop their cable fraud lawsuit when he threatened to countersue for malicious prosecution.
This individual *clearly* is in it for the money, and nothing else. Aside from a possible slander charge against the original poster, if what was said was in fact false; Google, nor any other news site, has any business being named in the law suit.
Something to the effect of "common carrier" status should apply to these sites. Unless they posted their own commentary that was specifically derrogatory to the owner of that web site, they have no grounds for the law suit; and even if commentary was posted, by the time the lawsuit is reaching national coverage for it's stupidity, you've lost any right to complain about it.
Google, being the group with the greatest amount of cash, should counter-sue the individual in question for being an asshat and attempting to exploit the system. If I recall correctly (IANAL), exploting the courts for personal gain is CONTEMPT and you go to jail for that, instantly.
My $0.02.
I wrote it, so I think I'd remember...
Do you think this is due to the /. effect, or is it because of the UUNET/WorldCom debacle?
At any rate, I wonder how much money it just cost him to have his site unreachable for basically an entire business day...
Can we get together and beat him down with empty cans of Sapporo Draft(with the most indestructable cans I've ever seen containing any substance less potent than anthrax)?
This guy (the guy who is suing everyone) is an asshole. The courts should really put a stop to these SLAPP lawsuits; I propose legislation against such truly evil lawsuits. I'm thinking that we tar and feather anyone who tries this, then hang them from their toenails for a couple years off of the edge of the Grand Canyon...
I'm sure I'm stomping on some inhumans' right to be facist slime, but it's worth it.
It's been a long time.