Cease and Desist for 'sucks' website
 

Received a "cease and desist" letter today.....

After my Generac 10KW natural gas generator basically burned itself up and after not getting any kind of support from the manufacturer, I setup my "sucks" site back in 2003. I kept a running diary of contacts with the company as well as diagnosing/repairing the problem. My major issue was that Generac refused to compensate me in any way, standing by the fact that since the unit was 2 months out of the warranty that they had no obligation. They repeatedly said that I could pay a tech to fix it, and which I received 3 different estimates of over $300 each, diagnostic charge only.

After some time, I sent letters to the BBB and the US Department of Consumers Affairs alerting them to what may be a fire hazard with this product. After some time later the manufacturer agreed to reimburse me for the parts I had already purchased to repair the unit.

Today I received a registered mail "cease and desist" letter from Generac's (generac.com) Vice President General Counsel informing me that if "in the unfortunate event that you fail to remove these defamatory materials, we will take aggressive legal action." One of their "objections" was to the use of the phrase "Customer NO service" on the site.

Just so happens that the domain expired this week and I did not renew it since it served its purpose and time to move on.

With all the existing case law surrounding "sucks" websites, it makes me wonder. Also makes me wonder about a company that's been around for many years that doesn't take the time to register the standard "sucks" domain names.

Generac -- GFY

it was out of warranty, what did you expect ?

I think if you made this site, were totally honest, and you're only intention was to inform other consumers then I congratulate and salute you. It's good to know there are people out there that will look out for others when they've been wronged.

heh interesting

Yea but it's not worht getting sued and into a lot of bullshit

You have legal precedent. As long as everything you say on the website is true....You'll win the case. Trust me.

If you hadn't let it expire this week, I would recommend sending plenty of press releases out to make sure some websites and magazines pick up on it. They'll think twice about sending cease and desists again.

As long as everything is true, and you have maybe $50,000-$100,000 to spend on attorney fees, and a few hundred spare hours spread out over the next two years. I agree, the law's on his side, but it can really screw up your life fighting a winning battle like that.

That's how my site got closed too ... and i don't think he wanna get sued

Just tell them you've got pics of the CEO of the company getting his cock sucked by his secretary and if they hassle you again, they'll be posted on the site.

:1orglaugh :1orglaugh :1orglaugh

It's just with all of the case law on the issue you'd think these guys would know that they really don't have any legal ground to stand on. So they send these silly letters out to scare people that don't know any better.

When companies do this, instead of just looking like a company that doesn't care, they look like a company that doesn't have a clue and that wants to restrict free speech.

If they did bring a suit I would probably have good odds at winning a malicious litigation suit because of the many precedents and current case law about these kinds of sites. Anybody looked at ford-sucks.com? Compared to that my site could have been used as the company's sales brochure :-)

It's pretty damn difficult to win a defamation/libel case when the facts are there, and trademark law is very clear on fair use and free speech issues. Hell I didn't even use their trademark on the site and at the very top in bold print said the site was not associated with them. That pretty much makes trademark issues go bye-bye.

My father was a lawyer and a judge and I just get ticked when I hear about these kinds of tactics. We can't win but we can litigate them into submission.

Anyway, I fixed my generator, learned a lesson about a manufacturer and their product, and moved on to other things.