Wal-Mart Now Going After Search Engines For Linking To Sites With Black Friday Ads

from the gotta-keep-the-lawyers-busy dept

It would appear that Wal-Mart's lawyers need to come up with excuses to keep billing Wal-Mart every year around this time. Despite the fact that Wal-Mart employees admit that sites posting "Black Friday Ads" help drive more business, Wal-Mart's hired guns keep threatening sites for posting the ads, falsely claiming a copyright on the content (hint: you can't copyright prices). This year, they've stepped it up a notch and are claiming that it's illegal to even link to a site that has such content.

Specifically, Wal-Mart's high-priced law firm has sent a takedown notice to the site SearchAllDeals.com, which is a search engine/aggregator of various deals sites. The site doesn't host any content itself, but that didn't stop Wal-Mart from sending a false DMCA takedown claim to the site (and, of course, a false DMCA takedown is illegal). So, we have Wal-Mart, whose employees think deal sites are helpful, getting its lawyers to send out bogus takedown notices over content that isn't copyrighted, and then sending them to search engines that don't even host the content in question.

It makes you wonder how much the lawyers are charging Wal-Mart... and if the fees are being paid out of the legal budget, or the marketing and promotions budget.

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Wal-Mart Threatens Site Over Black Friday Ad Deals

from the didn't-we-do-this-already? dept

Want to know how we know the holidays are coming? It's not the Christmas decorations already showing up in stores; it's the annual ritual of retailers threatening any website that posts the deals from their "Black Friday" (the day after Thanksgiving) sales circular prior to that day. Last year, Wal-Mart went beyond what others stores had done, in pre-threatening sites. In the past, companies like Target and Best Buy had simply threatened to sue sites after the ads went up. But Wal-Mart took it a step further and threatened to sue before the ads even went up, ignoring, of course that they don't own pricing data. The data on sales prices are not copyrightable and cannot be owned. Wal-Mart simply has no legal leg to stand on in demanding the data from the circular be taken down.

But why let that stop them? An anonymous reader alerts us to the fact that Wal-Mart is already sending the notices out to various sites, threatening legal ramifications if the sites were to post the prices prior to the date Wal-Mart makes them "official."

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Wal-Mart Can't Decide If The Web Is A Lawsuit Target Or A Marketing Opportunity

from the thanksgiving-tradition dept

This is becoming something of an annual ritual. Every year, websites obtain leaked copies of retail stores' day-after-thanksgiving sales circulators and post the prices. Every year, retail stores sue those websites claiming they're guilty of copyright infringement. And every year, Techdirt points out that prices are facts, and facts can't be copyrighted. The New York Times had a good write-up of the controversy. The offenders this year are Wal-Mart and Macy's both of whom have sent threatening letters to a site called BFAds warning them not to post information from their ads. The Times story has a couple of interesting tidbits. When confronted by the reporter, Wal-Mart couldn't provide a specific explanation of what was illegal about posting prices. We also learn that at the same time Wal-Mart is sending BFAds threatening letters, it's perfectly willing to send them money as part of its "affiliates program." You would think that the operators of BFAds would take a stand and refuse to do business with them until they retract their lawsuit threat. Meanwhile, a story in USA Today suggests that Wal-Mart might be realizing that the web is an important part of its marketing strategy and not just a place to send cease-and-desist letters. They've started offering special online sale prices for Black Friday, and they offer free shipping to customers who choose to have the purchases sent to their local Wal-Mart store. Maybe next year Wal-Mart should spend less time looking for people to sue and more time looking for ways to attract customers online.

Timothy Lee is an expert at the Insight Community. To get insight and analysis from Timothy Lee and other experts on challenges your company faces, click here.

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Thanksgiving Tradition: Bogus Legal Threats From Stores Against Posting Black Friday Prices

from the goes-well-with-Turkey dept

It seems like every year we get a story like this. The day after Thanksgiving is known in the retail business as "black Friday," as it's a huge shopping day. Many of the big chain stores hold massive sales on that day, which usually are detailed in newspaper circulars. However, there are a variety of websites that post the details of the sales well before Friday, and it seems to have become a Thanksgiving tradition for the stores to send out bogus cease-and-desist letters demanding that the info get taken down. This year, Wal-Mart has added a unique twist on the tradition: it's sending letters to various sites before they've even posted the info. The letters claim that the info is protected by copyright law, but that's not exactly true. Price information is considered factual information -- which (as we were reminded just this week) cannot be covered by copyright. Other information in the flyers could be covered by copyright, but just the prices are not. Just like in the past, it seems that these efforts are really just designed to intimidate these sites.

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