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SLAPPback!

  • Generally, a "SLAPP" is a (1) civil complaint or counterclaim; (2) filed against individuals or organizations; (3) arising from their communications to government or speech on an issue of public interest or concern. SLAPPs are often brought by corporations, real estate developers, government officials and others against individuals and community groups who oppose them on issues of public concern. SLAPP filers frequently use lawsuits based on ordinary civil claims such as defamation, conspiracy, malicious prosecution, nuisance, interference with contract and/or economic advantage, as a means of transforming public debate into lawsuits. Most SLAPPs are ultimately legally unsuccessful. While most SLAPPs lose in court, they "succeed" in the public arena. This is because defending a SLAPP, even when the legal defense is strong, requires a substantial investment of money, time, and resources. The resulting effect is a "chill" on public participation in, and open debate on, important public issues. This "chilling" effect is not limited to the SLAPP target(s): fearful of being the target of future litigation, others refrain from speaking on, or participating in, issues of public concern.
  • Anti-SLAPP Resource Center
  • California Anti-SLAPP Project

Other SLAPPs....

11/10/2005

NationMaster's Partial Surrender

This is the first direct communication between Mr. Steinmetz and I after his ultimatum. As you can see, NationMaster was unable to back up its threats.

Note that this email by contains factual inaccuracies. See this tdaxp post for a commentary. Most worrying is that he has yet to apologize for the false charge of defamation, or unambiguously retract the abusive threat of lawyers.

Steinmitz's epistle is timestamped Nov 10, 2005 5:29 AM:

Greetings Dan,

You were billed through PayPal on Sept. 21st 2004. You complained to us on Sept. 28th, 2004. Priya responded on Oct. 15th 2004 and gave you instructions on how to cancel your account through PayPal (since were not able to do it for you, as per PayPal rules at that time).You responded with a friendly "I appreciate your assistance and reply," on Oct 17th. On March 21st 2005 you are billed again, meaning the PayPal account had not been canceled (again, completely out of our hands). You sent an e-mail to Priya on April 1st 2005 in which you were obviously upset, but still did not unsubscribe yourself to our service. Priya responds on April 8th outlining again the directions for unsubscribing. As Priya mentioned in this e-mail, "I state this again - we CANNOT unsubscribe you from this end when you pay through the PAYPAL gateway. Paypal insists that they be the ones sign out their own members. It is their policy, not ours."

We suggest in the future that you understand with some payment gateways there are technological restrictions that prevent publishers from having the power that you may like them to. We did always offer an alternative payment gateway using your credit card (and even recommended this on the site) but you chose PayPal. We find it disappointing but also telling that you never raised an issue with the PayPal resolution centre, which is the normal route PayPal users take when they have a dispute with a seller.

Lastly, since we are now an entirely free educational site that values the input from our users and the community we've grown, we consider this payment matter closed, particularly considering we have given you a refund.

We invite you to publish this e-mail in its entirety on your blog.


Best Regards,

John Steinmetz
Content Manager

12:10 Posted in John Steinmetz , NationMaster , Viswa Priya | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this | Tags: NationMaster

11/05/2005

John Steinmetz's Bad Faith Additional Demands

In reply to my first response to Steinmetz's accusation of defamation. This message was timestamped Nov 4, 2005 9:40 AM:

Greetings Dan,

Thanks for the quick reply, and updating your blog topic. However, the headline [Nation Master is a Scam (Avoid Nationmaster)] is still there, and I've just discovered you also have these blog posts too:

http://tdaxp.blogspirit.com/archive/2005/05/12/nationmast...

http://tdaxp.blogspirit.com/archive/2005/04/09/viswa_priy...

We have no supporter section and Viswa Priya no longer works with us. We would appreciate it if you took down all of these url's and I'll get Luke to return all of your money back straight away. We're just a bunch of stat geeks trying to make a cool site - hope you understand.

Kind Regards,

John Steinmetz

10:41 Posted in John Steinmetz , NationMaster , Viswa Priya | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this | Tags: NationMaster

Reply To John Steinmetz's Bad Faith Additional Demands

In response to John Steinmetz's Bad Faith Additional Demands. This email timestamped Nov 4, 2005 10:00 AM:

John,

Thank you for the friendly and civil reply. I will keep mine in that tone, too.

I am very happy that Viswa is gone. Likewise, I am happy to similarly update the the other posts that related to my negative experiences with your company. I try to keep all information on my site up-to-date, and posts relating to nationmaster are no exception.

I am very happy to work with NationMaster on further updates. Considering how this dialogue began, though, perhaps it is best to await the olive branch you previously offered.

As a geek, I'm very happy to go that extra mile for fellow geeks. :) However, when their first email to be is rather legalistic, maybe it is best to walk together in baby steps :)

Take care,

Daniel

10:40 Posted in John Steinmetz , NationMaster , Viswa Priya | Permalink | Comments (1) | Email this | Tags: NationMaster