I'm extremely pissed off right now, but writing this will make me feel a LOT better, and you guys will get a kick out of it, too.
The message I'm responding to here has "caveatemptor.net" in the signature line. Pretty standard thing for people to make up a fictitious domain name that goes along with the point of their post. Very normal and innocuous, right?
Well, I just got a phone call from a Michael Damian demanding the identity of the author of the post and I told him he'd need a subpoena to get that info, and he went on to say that he didn't really want to sue me and the author, but would do so if he had to.
He wanted to go on and on, telling me about his organization, but I had to steer him back to the point.
Then when I told him the most I could do was PM the author asking that he refrain from including that domain name in the future, he said he'd appreciate that and also wants the post deleted. When I told him I couldn't, he told me that was nonsense as he's a web developer and knows it's easily done. So I explained to him about how, because of the database design and how the deletion routine works, I can't delete a message over 4 million messages back because the system would be swamped for days or weeks.
He then told me that if I didn't delete the message within a week, he was going to initiate a smear campaign of this site with all of his "media contacts".
I told him "Oh, yeah, threatening me works really well!" and hung up.
If you check out caveatemptor.net you'll see it's such a nothing it doesn't even have an Alexa ranking. I've seen Alexa rankings in the 2 MILLIONS, and my rarely-visited personal homepage has one in the 200-thousand area. So how nothing can his site be.
Anyway, here's what I think is the funniest part: He's complaining that an innocuous post from February 2001 infringes his copyright. For a domain name registered 10 months after the post!
Ardethan, he used your made-up domain name and registered it. Actionable? LOL
Also funny that I know that this one post on this site is going to result in more traffic to his site than it's ever gotten in its entire existence.
So, Michael Damian, I think you know pretty much where you can stuff your demands and threats.
And when/if you follow through on your smear campaign threat, I need only point people to this message.
And don't call me anymore. I prefer that evidence be in writing. |
