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Internet Libel
joelle at witty_org wrote:
"Steve [Pushak] is definitely not alone in this view.
"I for one, support this view. Those who don't seem to think it's their God
given right to speak their minds about this or that company and to hell with
the consequences. You seem to think that your single, poor experience with
a company gives you the right to amplify your opinion in a public forum and
damage its reputation and cost it hundreds of thousands of dollars."
And just where do you get your facts Mr. joelle at witty_org? The last time I
checked there were about 1500 subscribers to the APD in total and of those,
nearly half were outside of the United States. Most of us can't even give
away our surplus cuttings and many of us buy plants only rarely if at all.
Those facts couldn't possibly turn into a "hundreds of thousands of dollars"
loss.
"Under these circumstances, people contact the local media who do some
serious fact-checking before they alert their public on some "Sunshine
special" on the 6 O'clock news. Should they find your experience an
isolated incident; your case gets dropped. The media can also quickly
determine if this was your own attempt to extort unreasonable concessions
from the business that went bad."
That's exactly what we did. Joe Ducey, a San Francisco Channel 4 KRON
reporter, came to my house and discussed the case for several hours. He
reviewed the email notes Novak complained of; he surfed the PetSwarehouse
web site; reviewed the complaint itself; talked to several First Amendment
experts; why he even phoned up Robert Novak and discussed the case (to the
extent Novak was willing to discuss the case); and he agreed to fly a camera
crew to NY to interview Novak. While events of September 11th and a
promotion for Ducey have intervened, we still expect the news report shortly
(which may be picked up nationally). And I can assure you that Ducey and
Channel 4 have not concluded that we were attempting "to extort unreasonable
concessions from the business that went bad." What would those concessions
be anyway? My own best judgment is that Ducey and Channel 4 have reached a
conclusion that suits such as Novak's really are a threat to our First
Amendment right to speak openly in America. That's certainly the conclusion
reached recently by a California Court of Appeals, in a case not related to
Novak's suit.
"The problem is the list is vulnerable to the abuse of such individuals
because it has no one to investigate such claims. Example; the oldest trick
in business is to have hired henchmen start "whisper campaigns" against
their competition. I've read in newsgroups that this tactic has already
driven several businesses under who could not afford to defend themselves.
Yet, naive readers still look at such campaigns as giving them the headsup."
You really don't get it, do you? There were no whisper campaigns. The
Better Business Bureau report by itself without more makes the case against
Novak. The facts of our experiences with PetSwarehouse which were carefully
described by most of us speak for themselves. When Novak's henchmen
threatened me in an email note, and when I called them back personally, they
claimed my reference to the BBB report was itself defaming PetSwarehouse.
And they claimed they had a claim against the BBB for the information found
there. What has become of that threat and claim? Has the BBB modified the
report on PetSwarehouse? No, they've only added additional complaints to
the report and pointed out that many of the complaints really do relate to
the Internet mail order business. Has Novak proven a defamation claim
against me? No, he hasn't. He hasn't been willing to take me on at all.
Why do you suppose that is, if his claims are meritorious?
"The simplest solution as Steve suggested is not to have any negative
comments tolerated on the list, period. My preference would be for an
approved vendor's list but I am not optimistic."
This is utter and complete nonsense in my view. I'm glad you're not
defending American values Mr. joelle at witty_org. Please leave that activity
to others.
Honestly folks, for the first time since this whole sordid mess arose, I
find myself wondering if the Jack/Mike/Bob cabal that distorts the
conversation over at Compuserve have finally figured out that they never
were denied access to the APD, and decided to bring their poison over here.
I hope and pray that is not the case.
Regards, Steve Dixon, San Francisco
And by the way, what is your name and location Mr. joelle at witty_org? What
is the reason you choose not to identify yourself. Most of us on this list
are perfectly happy to identify ourselves to each other.