MetaFilter Founder Says Vacation Firm Forged Court Docs To Scotch Review 116
IonOtter (629215) writes Matt Haughey, founder of MetaFilter, has challenged a Cease & Desist letter from Sundance Vacations, a seller of time-shares with a reputation for aggressive sales tactics and suppression of criticism. Only this time, it seems that the plaintiff may have forged court documents ordering Mr. Haughey, Facebook, Google, Yahoo, Bing and other search engines to remove any and all mentions of the links and posts in question. Legal blog Popehat has picked this up as well, prompting Ken White to wryly note, "...Sundance Vacations is about to learn about the Streisand Effect." The story is gaining traction, and being picked up by Boing-Boing, as well as hitting the first page of search results on Google.
Re:Do not ever (Score:5, Informative)
Dude even blocked the doorway after we got up and tried to leave. I eventually threatened to call the police, and he finally gave up.
I was at a home show a while back and talked to a guy whose entire business was "getting people out of timeshare agreements".
That's how awful time-shares are, and how effective they are at bullying people into bad decisions: breaking time-share agreements is a viable business model!
Re:scotch? (Score:3, Informative)
You should pick up a dictionary some time. They're full of interesting words.
Merriam Webster [merriam-webster.com]
transitive verb
2: to put an end to scotched rumors of a military takeover>
First Known Use of SCOTCH
15th century
Oxford [oxforddictionaries.com]
verb
1 [with object] Decisively put an end to: a spokesman has scotched the rumours
Origin
early 17th century (as a noun): of unknown origin; perhaps related to skate1. The sense 'render temporarily harmless' is based on an emendation of Shakespeare's Macbeth iii. ii. 13 as ‘We have scotch'd the snake, not kill'd it’, originally understood as a use of scotch2; the sense 'put an end to' (early 19th century) results from the influence on this of the notion of wedging or blocking something so as to render it inoperative.
Re:Do not ever (Score:5, Informative)
As described, it wasn't assault, as no explicit threats were made. (Generally speaking, most states, assault is the threat, battery is the attack.) But if the guy blocked the exit, you tell him once that you're leaving, and either he gets out of the way, or it's unlawful imprisonment. Which is what I said. Unlikely any arrest will be made, or charges brought if it is, but it gets a police report filed on the guy, and that's a step towards convincing him that other crimes are less hazardous to his well being.