Ceased and Desisted

Posted by Thomas J. Brown at 0900 hrs

This post comes exactly one month from the moment I was to, "remove entirely from your web page the entire section you posted about [SpeedTicketBeaters.com]".

Instead of me being the one to cease and desist, it would appear that SpeedTicketBeaters.com's legal department has ceased and desisted, as one full month later, I have yet to receive any notice of litigation against me. Perhaps they read my post about how they don't have a case and realized that any lawsuit against me would be a frivolous one.

I don't know how SpeedTicketBeaters.com's process works, but I wouldn't be surprised if they had an extensive knowledge of traffic law, and took advantage of other peoples' lack of knowledge with regard to those laws. If that's the case, I find it interesting that they think they can bully innocent bloggers into taking down material with which they disagree — but which is not factually inaccurate — by trying to take advantage of the bloggers' lack of knowledge of their first amendment rights.

Unfortunately for companies who send these threatening but baseless nastygrams, there is a growing faction of bloggers who know their rights and aren't afraid to defend themselves. Just as it would serve bloggers well to absolutely know what they write to be true, it would serve companies sending deceptive threats well to know that bloggers aren't going to take their bullshit any more.

After all, which is worse for the company? A barely-read blog that states a critical opinion, or a pissed off blogger who exposes the company as being a bunch of whiny, deceptive jerks, then submits the whole ordeal to Digg and BoingBoing?