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Startup Threatened Into Settling Over Hyperlinking

Posted by timothy on from the naughty-anchortexts-forbidden dept.

An anonymous reader writes "A tiny startup that was threatened by a massive law firm over nothing more than a humble hyperlink has been forced to settle and change its linking policies, handing Goliath the win in this gratuitous trademark case. Under the agreement, real estate startup BlockShopper can no longer include hyperlinks anywhere on its website to Jones Day, a massive Chicago law firm, except explicitly on URL text. Essentially, jonesday.com is okay, but not blah blah blah." I wonder if the owners of jonesdaysucks.com feel the same way.

20 of 333 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Cue the Streisand effect in 3...2...1... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    concerted effort starting now. stick it in forum signatures if you want. "turtle penis."

  2. Re:oh yizzo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Let them know how you feel via their contact page at:

    JonesDay's Contact Us page

  3. Re:Googlebomb anyone? by seaturnip · · Score: 2, Informative

    You can't googlebomb from Slashdot comments. Take a look at the HTML source: every link is marked rel="nofollow", which tells search engines to ignore it. Most websites that allow any random user to post links include this tag as an anti-spam measure.

  4. RTFA, it's not about hot linking by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    .. the firm presumably wasn't thrilled about having its attorneys' home purchases broadcast ..

    The firm's got a point if you ask me.

    .. (the firm) demanded that BlockShopper remove the items. When BlockShopper refused, the firm sued the 15-staff startup for trademark infringement.

    This is an overkill, but I'm sure they just meant to teach these boneheads a lesson - don't fuck with lawyers.

    1. Re:RTFA, it's not about hot linking by PitaBred · · Score: 5, Informative

      It doesn't matter. It's public record, and the litigous bastards at Jones Day got upset at Blockshopper simply posting public info on their site. And they sued them by filing an abusive lawsuit with a completely unrelated law, nothing actually connected with what they were upset about. That's what the bullshit is.

      --
      My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
    2. Re:RTFA, it's not about hot linking by NewYorkCountryLawyer · · Score: 5, Informative

      Yep, but the judge in this case is the even bigger idiot.

      Thing is, judges always say things like that -- to both sides. It doesn't tell you how they're ultimately going to rule.

      Unlike on television, where every case goes to trial in 3 days, the reality of litigation is that the Courts do not have the resources for every case to go to trial. The Courts would need to be a hundred times their present size to accommodate that many trials.

      In today's world of modern litigation, one of the functions of a judge is to get rid of the case, which involves arm twisting of BOTH sides. The judge tells each side why they're stupid not to settle.

      So if the judge said that, you can't draw any conclusions as to how the case would ultimately wound up.

      --
      Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
  5. Re:This just in.... by palegray.net · · Score: 2, Informative

    I've got a few for you: bad lawyers, also known as shitty lawyers, working for a retarded law firm do really bad work.

    --
    512 MB RAM, 20 GB disk, 200 GB transfer, five datacenters. $19.95/month.
  6. Re:All those lawyers... by Sethumme · · Score: 4, Informative

    Their goal wasn't to stop referrals; the assumption is that their goal was to harass a website that was posting undesirable (but public) information about one of partners of the law firm.

  7. Re:wtf judge? by NormalVisual · · Score: 5, Informative

    Let him know then:

    The Honorable John W. Darrah
    United States District Court
    219 South Dearborn Street
    Chicago, IL 60604
    Contact: Kathryn E. Bianchetti
    Phone: (312) 435-5619

    I would expect such behavior from a big law firm, and to some degree it's to be expected if it's a real trademark action, but I'd expect a federal judge to use a little more discretion and not be so blatantly one-sided. This asshole frankly seems to be in Jones-Day's back pocket, and I wouldn't expect anything resembling a fair hearing from him based on his actions to this point.

    Yes, Judge Darrah, I just said I believe you're either either incompetent or crooked. You can choose which one you think represents you best, but either way I don't think you're qualified to be hearing this case.

    --
    Please stand clear of the doors, por favor mantenganse alejado de las puertas
  8. Nice effort by Spazholio · · Score: 4, Informative

    The whole Google-Bomb idea was nice, but every link on this page is nofollow'd. Not gonna do any good.

  9. Re:Jones Day 1, Slashdot crowd 0 by nyet · · Score: 2, Informative

    >You have the absolute right to point to any resource on my server you want?

    Yes.

  10. PDFs are your friend by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    Filetype:pdf site:jonesday.com. Around 2,000 pieces of fun. Don't link to them! Don't use downthemall to get them all, don't zip them, and don't upload them to a torrent tracker.

  11. Re:No Justice, No Peace? by whoever57 · · Score: 4, Informative

    So, basically, here's a just saying, point blank, that he's not in the business of justice

    Why? Because he said exactly the same thing repeated day in and day out on slashdot?

    No, because that is not something the judge should concern himself with. When he does concern himself with that, it suggests bias.

    --
    The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
  12. Re:oh yizzo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    Yeah, or niggers, or cunts, or spics, or niggers, or bush did 9/11, or niggers, or 2 girls 1 cup, or 2 guys 1 horse, or on.nimp.org, or niggers, or bdsm free porno, orxnxx.com, orsuicide hotline, orniggers, orslashdot, or or any crude offending stuff like that...

  13. Re:wtf judge? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Or you can rate him here. This should get interesting:

    http://www.therobingroom.com/Judge.aspx?ID=1190

    Reaaaaddyyyyyyy GO

  14. Re:At the rate this article is going... by WillKemp · · Score: 2, Informative

    Yeah. Like most forums, links in comments are given the rel="nofollow" attribute, which means google will ignore them.

  15. Re:oh yizzo by Macthorpe · · Score: 2, Informative

    Formatting is thus:

    <a href="http://INSERT.URL.HERE">Insert text here</a>

    The above example appears like this:

    Insert text here

    --
    "It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations, if you live near him." - Tolkien
  16. Re:oh yizzo by LingNoi · · Score: 2, Informative

    Not really, every link to them on slashdot has [jonesday.com] next to it which is what they wanted from the website they sued. Perhaps if slashdot changed the site so that [jonesday.com] didn't appear.. maybe..

  17. Re:At the rate this article is going... by TuaAmin13 · · Score: 3, Informative

    Wrong. Comments are indexed by google. http://www.google.com/search?q=JonesDay.com+sacrifices+Chinese+babies+in+the+name+of+Satan&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a

    Someone made a reference up where JonesDay.com Sacrifices Chinese babies in the name of Satan and it's already been indexed.

    http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1136379&cid=26946099

  18. Re:This just in.... by nog_lorp · · Score: 2, Informative

    You want goatse.fr

    It is the only currently running second-level domain for goatse (As per the Wikipedia article).