The Reluctant Blogger

Ah, the egomaniacal CEO. They’re so much fun. I got the following email today, but the best part was not the email. It was the attachments. Was I supposed to be impressed that you can use Google and find my resume? Yes. He sent me my own resume.

The email: (my comments and edits are italicized)

Mr. XXXX XXXXX (Me)

XXXXXXX (here he goes on to list an address for me that is out of date by several years)

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

www.arlingtondev.com

CC. Arlington Development, LLC

Although we are in agreement with freedom of speech and a place where people can vent their frustrations, we take great offence to Arlington Development, LLC (XXXX XXXXXXX (me again)) for allowing damaging defamatory accusations to be posted about XXXXXX. We are preparing to take immediate legal action in the courts of Arlington, Massachusetts against XXXXXX XXXXXXXX (me, yet again)
and Arlington Development for posting the following blogs:

• Mention names such as my name (XXXXX (his name)), an employee’s name (XXXXX) and my wife’s name (XXXXXX) which is against your own rules as you know this is simply illegal.
  
• Defamatory comments about an individual that includes name calling – “XXXXX is a BIG TOOL”
  
• Statements that XXXXXX (Company name) is committing illegal software pirating – “Pirated software: Yup. XXXXX ran pirated software, and they installed it on customers machines. One not mentioned already, XXXXXX. It was used extensively, without license, to image just about every computer that went out the door.”
  
• Accusations about possible illegal drug problems with XXXXX – “It could be drug related but who knows”
  
• Accusations about Tax Fraud – “Tax Fraud: Oh yeah baby. Lets buy a brand new TV for the office, deliver it to XXXXXs home, and claim it as a business expense.”
  

 

To prevent any further damage, XXXXXXX demands that all blogs about XXXXXXX be immediately removed from your website by the end of Thursday January 10^th, 2008.

We also demand that all of the names or email addresses of all persons who have posted these blogs be immediately released to us so we can pursue legal action against those persons. In preparation that Arlington Development claims that PIPIDA prevents the release of these names, we are preparing an affidavit to the courts of Arlington, Massachusetts to obtain a court order to force Arlington Development, LLC to release the names of individuals who have posted these blogs.  

It is our legal opinion that Arlington Development has not taken the necessary steps to review, filter or ensure that the information posted in the blogs on your website are not defamatory, untrue or harmful to a third party. Arlington Development has also not collected sufficient information about your users to ensure your user’s accountability which in turn causes Arlington Development, LLC to be liable for all third party damages.

We have sustained considerable provable damage directly from our clients reading these untrue blogs and we are currently preparing our statement of claim against XXXXXXXX and Arlington Development, LLC which will further outline in detail the damages that XXXXXXX has incurred.

Regards,

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

CEO

(additional address info removed)

 

So, this CEO makes several mistakes. First of all, he sent me my resume. So right from the start, he has no credibility. It’s like shouting “I found you! I found you!” and expecting me to be shocked. I’m a software engineer. I’m all over the internet.

Arlington Development, while the office used to be in Arlington, MA, is actually incorporated as a Delaware LLC. He goes on to list a very out of date mailing address for Arlington Development, LLC, and tells me about the affidavit that they’re preparing to force Arlington Development to release the names of people who posted on JobVent. Its anonymous. When will people get it? We don’t have that information. Perhaps I should be clearer about that on the site.

He says it is his “legal opinion” that we haven’t adequately filtered and reviewed content that gets posted. Are you a lawyer? If not, I’m not interested in your legal opinion. Plus, we have no obligation to review all the information that comes into the site in real-time. Plus, JobVent.com is not liable for any damages in your “statement of claim” because we acted on the removal of the reviews as soon as we received his email. CDA of ‘96. Read it. Maybe you can get your government to block JobVent.com. Best of luck.

Anyway, what follows is my response to this guy. Again, my edits are italicized.

XXXX,

Normally we do not respond to legal threats of this kind. When a company politely asks us to remove something from our site, we take immediate action to review the content in question, and if we determine it has violated our policies, the content is then archived and removed from public access. We do not have the resources or desire to monitor every review and comment as they come in to our site.

We did however take a look at the reviews about your company after we received your email, and noticed that each and every one of them violated one policy in particular which warranted their removal. The policy that each review about XXXXX violated was that no review should attack anyone personally.

You personally seem to be the subject and target of each review.

The reviews have been removed from public view due to their violation of our policies, but I hope you read and addressed the issues they discussed.

As per your “demand” that we give you the names or email addresses of the people that posted information about your company: It is clear you don’t understand how this site works. It is anonymous. People can post without logging any identifiable information about themselves; no name, no email address. So we don’t have this information that you are demanding.

Why did you send me my own resume? I already have a copy.

Additionally, you have listed a very out of date address for Arlington Development, LLC.  

Please let me know if you continue to have an issue with content that appears on the site.

Good luck, and best wishes, (this was my wife’s touch… brilliant)

XXXXXXXX

JobVent.com

 

 

 

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 9th, 2008 at 9:21 pm and is filed under JobVent.com. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.