FBI Apparently Believes That Court Orders Are For Suckers

Infomercial Companies Never Learn: Another One Suing Site For Negative Reviews

from the or-you-could-just-improve-your-product dept

Fri, Dec 21st 2007 2:19pm — Mike Masnick

Greg Beck, from Public Citizen, has written us in the past a few times about bogus trademark lawsuits being brought against online review sites, such as InfomercialScams.com. Back in May there was a case where a company advertising its wares via infomercials sued the site for trademark infringement. Clearly, it was not the trademark use that was the problem (especially since it's difficult to see how that's trademark infringement). It was merely a way to try to get negative reviews (written by third party users of the site) taken offline. A similar case came up this fall when the infamous Video Professor sued 100 anonymous critics on the site, demanding that the owner of InfomercialScams.com turn over their IP addresses.

Beck is now back alerting us to the fact that the Video Professor has withdrawn his subpoena for info from the site, but is still forging ahead with the lawsuit (and is seeking the identity of a user on Wikipedia). However, he also notes that yet another company that advertises via infomercials is now suing InfomercialScams, claiming trademark infringement. Once again, this is clearly not trademark infringement, but an attempt by the company to bully an independent site into taking negative reviews offline. Just imagine if any of these companies put half as much effort into improving their products and services instead of calling the lawyers whenever anyone has anything critical to say about these firms.

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Filed Under: infomercials, reviews, slapp
Companies: infomercialscams, lifestyle lift, public citizen

16 Comments

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Overcast, 21 Dec 2007 @ 2:30pm

Ahh, glad I know that now. Their lawsuit is enough to confirm to me that they suck.
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Moron in a Hurry, 21 Dec 2007 @ 2:46pm

Trademark
I'm not confused at all.
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Jocelyn, 21 Dec 2007 @ 3:01pm

Go ahead and sue me Video Professor or suck my u k
There's an old-time computer geek with a radio show in Los Angeles. Even he couldn't get a refund from Video Professor after he ordered products to test the company's customer service policies and found that his credit card had been quickly charged for the supposedly free videos he'd ordered. The Video Professor company wasn't even smart enough to recognize a good PR move by refunding the guy's money, and they were also unimpressed by the fact that they were screwing with a man who was well known in the tech community. This man has made a fortune of his own by setting up Medicare billing systems for doctors and hospitals. He's also got a call-in radio show where he talks about computers. Duh. Wouldn't you have the brains enough to make sure this guy at least got his money back? Nope. Video Professor didn't give a rat's ass.
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Max Powers, 21 Dec 2007 @ 11:08pm

Scam Companies
I have been following this kind of crap for a long time and have found that what pisses these companies off more than anything is when a Google search lists these complaint sites right above or below their websites.

They will never learn until they are assessed fines or penalties for filing these frivolous lawsuits.

Not one of these lawsuits have had any merit and they are grasping at straws or hoping the website can't afford to fight them back. Too bad for them that Public Citizen has taken on all of infomercialscams.com lawsuits pro bono.
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- Alfred E. Neuman, 22 Dec 2007 @ 7:04am
  
  Re: Scam Companies
  "pisses these companies off more than anything is when a Google search lists these complaint sites right above or below their websites."
  
  And, there are few things that I find more humorous.
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- Todd, 28 Dec 2007 @ 9:03am
  
  Re: Scam Companies
  When you are considering buying something from a company or a specific model of a product, you should always google for "company_name sucks" or "product_model sucks".
  
  You also have to keep in mind that people were mad when they wrote these things. Look past the emotion and look into the problems and figure out if these are livable for you or not (and most problems are livable, because you live with TOTALLY CRAPPY cell phone service, yet you've been conditioned to accept it because "that's the way it is").
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Golf, 22 Dec 2007 @ 11:32am

The More It's Hyped.......
the worse the product.

For example: NordicTrack, Bowflex, and you can probably think of a dozen more. All suck.
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JustMatt, 23 Dec 2007 @ 12:37pm

Video Professor rip-off ?
So if we write random words like:

Video Professor
no refund
Video Professor
scam
Video Professor
lawsuit
Video Professor
law suit
Video Professor
sued
Video Professor
rip-off
Video Professor
ripoff
Video Professor

Does that mean we get free software too?
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pj, 24 Dec 2007 @ 11:01am

Video Professor is for morons
If you feel the need to even oder this stupid software or dvd or whatever it is then you are DUMB enough to get scammed to and dont belong using a computer!
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- Anonymous Coward, 25 Dec 2007 @ 7:39am
  
  Re: Video Professor is for morons
  Learn how to use the English language properly before you start calling people dumb...
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SLR, 24 Dec 2007 @ 6:12pm

Video Professor
This has got to be the funniest and most futile court case I've heard about it a long time.

1st Dumb Move: Trying to force a blog site to give up personal information on its users. Most sites store that allow users to create accounts with them have some type of user confidentiality agreement, so I expect a long hard uphill fight for Mr. Video Professor.

2nd Dumb Move: Even if the sites give up their information, how credible is it? How many individuals use an online alias and fill out online forms with bogus info?

3rd Dumb Move: Lets say they do find enough to narrow it down (say Video Professor sues by IP), now they have the long uphill battle to prove who was actually using the computer and submitted the post.

4rd Dumb Move: Lets say the planets were in alignment and Video doctor gets enough info to take an individual to court. He's fighting an extremely controversial issue. People generally are very protective of the first amendment. Anything that even comes close to infringing on amendment will be met with strong resistance (unless its 'masked' as for 'our protection-- ie: the Patriot Act WTF???)...

Just my 2 cents...
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Anonymous Coward, 26 Dec 2007 @ 7:44am

irony
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plastic injection moulding, 5 May 2009 @ 7:41am

CCTV
Rather than stiff wooden benches and stale chips (the offerings on most ferries), this ship offered outstanding deli-style lunches, first-run movies on two big screens, incredibly comfy the lounge printing seating and even a cocktail bar for those who wanted to get loaded during the three hour journey across the channel. The girls and I were psyched to plug in on computers molded plastic parts and get caught up on blogging and were actually a little sad when our ship—all too quickly—pulled into port.
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Snuggie, 30 Nov 2009 @ 4:19pm

lol
It is just their point of view, they do not deserve to be sued. I mean some people like chia pets some people do not, doe snot mean that they should turn around and sue just for expressing your point of view.
Snuggie
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David Judd, 19 Dec 2009 @ 1:04pm

infomercials
What a shame it is that infomercial scam.com is gone. This whole story would read like a really bad novel if it was fiction because it seems too unbelievable. But it is true and amazing that these mobsters that sell crap over the internet and T.V. have actually gotten away with this. It's like a convicted criminal that has sit around all day in prison learning how to circumvent the system by reading the law in law journals so up to date and modern that the most high priced attorney would blush. Oh, wait a minute, they are criminals, they just haven't been convicted.
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AbCirclePro, 8 Jun 2010 @ 7:04pm

this is so silly because it is never going to end ab circle pro
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