Legal Threat from Switch Media. Please do not refer to them again here. Ever.

Vexorg

For those wondering what happened to the recent thread about Switch Media. I have removed the thread as we have been threated with Legal Action by Stitch Media and by their Solicitors Beauchamps.

Sadly we were not given the opportunity to investigate as the alleged offending remarks had been removed (possibly also under threat of legal action - can this be confimed?) before this incident had been brought to our attention.

V.

DeVore

As far as I am concerned, Switchmedia are not to return to Boards.ie nor to post here again nor is anyone to remark on them or their business. Their first interaction with us was to threaten Boards.ie with legal action. Before we could even respond we got a legal letter demanding not only the removal of the offending content but also the removal of the entire thread.

Two can play at that game, I never want to see them referenced here again.
This thread will be stickied here now. Permanently.

DeV.

democrates

Gas. I read that yesterday and actually thought well of sm for stating their case and expressing a willingness to work out any issues with said customer rather than getting litigous. I thought their reference to libel was a fair point, and effective as the OP then removed the original remarks based on the clarified situation. Problem solved, or so it seemed.

An action against boards would inevitably be deleterious to its operation and thereby the benefits it provides to a large community of members. The implications of that bigger picture seems lost on them. If they are wise they'll apologise for the hasty over-reaction, and a donation to boards would demonstrate their csr credentials.

Ph3n0m

Thread closed but remains stickied

DeVore

Ph3n0m, its cool. I got this one covered.

democrates, if they had approached this reasonably this would have gone a different way. Pointing a lawyer at me on day 1 is NOT the way reasonable people go about business. Its the way bullies who dont want something aired go about things.

I had a quick check of who they are too. http://www.whoisireland.com/IEDRresellers/IEDRresellers-class-A.php
Interesting reading, typically English people coming here threatening Irish people hasnt worked out great in the past.

DeV.

Gordon

Vexorg wrote:

For those wondering what happened to the recent thread about Switch Media. I have removed the thread as we have been threated with Legal Action by Stitch Media and by their Solicitors Beauchamps.

Sadly we were not given the opportunity to investigate as the alleged offending remarks had been removed (possibly also under threat of legal action - can this be confimed?) before this incident had been brought to our attention.

V.

The poster that posted about this company immediately deleted his own comments as soon as the company replied with a complaint, as democrates said.

It's a shame that this happened. More so for that particular company. They now have no avenue for showing good business practices on boards, unlike some other Irish Hosts.

I'll keep an eye out for them and make sure they don't come back also.

Ph3n0m

Gordon wrote:

The poster that posted about this company immediately deleted his own comments as soon as the company replied with a complaint, as democrates said.

It's a shame that this happened. More so for that particular company. They now have no avenue for showing good business practices on boards, unlike some other Irish Hosts.

I'll keep an eye out for them and make sure they don't come back also.

Cool, I am sure they will be posting in Personal Issues on how mean boards.ie is

CuLT

Glad to see the back of them, I'll be sure that if they ever come up in conversation in any sense, anywhere, I will advise of what happened here, and recommend strongly against any association with them.

Make an enemy of the largest Irish online community, well done. I'm sure your marketing guys will love you.

democrates

DeVore wrote:

Ph3n0m, its cool. I got this one covered.

democrates, if they had approached this reasonably this would have gone a different way. Pointing a lawyer at me on day 1 is NOT the way reasonable people go about business. Its the way bullies who dont want something aired go about things.

I had a quick check of who they are too. http://www.whoisireland.com/IEDRresellers/IEDRresellers-class-A.php
Interesting reading, typically English people coming here threatening Irish people hasnt worked out great in the past.

DeV.

I have an inkling of what it's like from both sides. MS legal representatives used to send me letters warning of dire consequences if I wasn't compliant with their licences, and some crap about the bsa. They really have no idea how this type of behaviour impacts the recipient and their future decisions, I find that absolutely astounding. As my grandfather used to say, friends come and go, but enemies accumulate.

At the same time I'm in business and I have had to defend my ground on boards before against an unjustified attack (from my perspective), I was incensed and posted that if I wasn't anonymous I'd sue for libel. But in hindsight I was dead wrong on that point. (I also regretted it getting so sour as it wasn't in the spirit of boards and the other poster is an excellent boards member whose posts I enjoy - when I'm not at the receiving end!). But anyway, the fact is, if I posted under my business name I'd be like flippin' Ghandi, as I am when dealing with customers and potential customers. As my grandmother used to say, never show your teeth in public.

That's what's most surprising here, a big company doing something so ill-judged. The only possible remaining issue might have been to request a change to the title of the thread so that people who saw it but didn't read it to see the sm side wouldn't be left with a bad impression, no biggie, just a pm to a mod or a phone call from a human. But instead of being clever and turning the situation into a positive, they've threatened a legal attack unless the entire thread was suppressed, and so caused far more damage to their reputation themselves than the op could have if he had not deleted his posts.

I guess it's easy for me to propose a path to reconciliation as I didn't receive the threat, I know if I were in your shoes DeV they'd have their work cut out if they wanted to redeem themselves, but it would be possible.

Dave!

I'll be sure to advise people to avoid doing business with them. Thanks for the heads up.

Time Magazine

They were one of the three companies I was looking at to host a project that would be for trading advice on College assignments/courses, This would be frequented by University students, particularly those who are technologically-savvy and thus far more likely to set up their own websites in due course.

Hate that.

the_syco

The funny bit is this: if someone has a question in future about this, they won't be able to answer, as the thread will be locked, and will be pointed to this thread, and thus, the person will just pick another company:D

Ph3n0m

Proving yet again that boards.ie, specifically that webmaster forum is not "insert company's name" support area

GoneShootin

Client of ours uses "company x" for their hosting, and we found "company x" to be very difficult to deal with regarding technical issues.

This furthur validates my reasons for advicing my client why they should move from "company x". Perhaps this info will strengthen my case.

miju

have 2 clients with them , will be advising against that in future

Zascar

Wow, even Tom Rafferty is talking about it!

GoneShootin

Zascar wrote:

Wow, even Tom Rafferty is talking about it!

Careful now, could be another O'Reilly style lawsuit

ecksor

This is an interesting one. I was the first one to see the mail that switchmedia sent to us complaining about this thread. It was a difficult one to call since the offending content appeared to have been removed before I got here (about 2 hours later I think) by the original poster and all that was left was some responses that weren't really on the original poster's side (hence my duty was unclear). I waited to consult further with the other admins on the matter but by then (the next day) we'd received a complaint from the company's legal counsel.

Apparently this is turning into a bit of a crusade point for some other people but at the end of the day the company has the right to complain if they feel that they are being libelled on our forums and we have no wish to give anyone the impression that that is not the case. The issue here is that it all got very aggressive very quickly even though it was actually impossible for anyone who could have responded to the original complaints we received to even evaluate what exactly had happened. This approach didn't seem to us to be constructive.

Bear in mind that although people will inevitably make purchasing decisions as a result of what they read on boards that it isn't constructive to give the impression that nobody should ever dare criticise us or complain if they feel hard done by.

Cloud

Now we have been threatened with legal action from Chris Evans at Switch Media and their solicitors Beauchamps. This was pretty annoying, the shoot first (with a solicitor’s letter), tell us to sort the problem afterwards policy really doesn’t work people. I’m talking to the clients in this case, not the solicitors (they just did what they were told to I guess).

To paraphrase (again), this letter asked that a “misleading, false and defamatory thread be removed immediately". If that wasn’t done by today, there were some threats of instituting legal proceedings. It then mentioned the client’s goodwill in Ireland, and that they would seek all current and future legal costs from us in addition to damages and an account of profits (ours or theirs?!).

Even if such a case were pursued (and I don’t think it would be valid, since a poster’s opinions are their own [see previous Irish Psychics Live post]), it would only damage the overall boards.ie community (on the comments of one poster) and also the claimant’s reputation.

Just ask us to remove dodgy content or defamatory material, and we’ll do it. Send us a solicitor’s letter and we will still do our best to remove problematic posts, but you will also get the extra negative PR associated with any bully tactics.

I’m glad that Switch Media now consider the case closed. I hope others thinking of sending solicitor’s letters will hear my plea.

http://www.johnbreslin.com/blog/2006/07/12/more-legal-threats-this-time-from-switch-media/

CaptainSmith

I'm quite amused, I know several people who run such operations, and they all agree that all press is good press, think about it, even someone like me had to look at their website to see who they were!

miju

CaptainSmith wrote:

I'm quite amused, I know several people who run such operations, and they all agree that all press is good press, think about it, even someone like me had to look at their website to see who they were!

you may have checked them out but would you go with them now?????

actually dont answer that (can never be too careful)

Rollo Tamasi

i was cosidering getting a .ie domain from them but i batted for BK in the end. Loyalty and all that kinda stuff played a part. Thank christ i didn't go near them. I doubt they will be here for too long tbh.

Why? Beacuse.............................

^that's a link btw.

Bob the Builder

A very childish way to go about being a respectable business...imo

fewleh

Hi, sorry to drag this up again, I've read through all the threads I can find assoicated with said company.

We are having a problem, and was hoping to find some helpful words from anyone who might have dealt with them before..

We moved the hosting from them after the year was up, as they were increasing it from £100 to like £190 for the year, and domain name was going up to £25 for the year...when other registrars charge 6 quid for 2 years (its a .co.uk) ..

They let us cancel having jumped through hoops and faxed in documents and all sorts, and now have started threatening us. Apparently we still have to pay the second year charges, even though we don't want or need them. They are threatening to sell off our domain name if we don't pay. Thing is, we transferred the domain name away to another company...so, they have NO way of controlling the domain, so it makes me question other things they are saying. Is it all scare tactics? Apparently we signed up to a 2 year contract, this time last year...is it legal for them to force us to pay, even if we cancelled well before the end of year 1 and are not using their services? So frustrating. Just seems to be scare tactics...but dn't want to totally ignore it. Please, any thoughts warmly welcomed.

Best, Olly

pfurey101

Blooming heck - Its just as well Vodafone is not like SM :eek:

Fair play to ya VF!