[This post has been edited. Reasons for this are given below.]
(Warning, most links in Swedish.)
After spamming hundreds of Swedish blogs with misspelled marketing messages, anonymous representatives for the Swedish company “[H— & N—] Consulting” are now mailing misspelled legal threats to any Swedish blog that mentions their name. While we
haven’t been threatened yethave only received a single incomprehensible threat this far, we just want to make it clear that we don’t have any plans, at this time, to publish their name, nor the names of “blogrankers”, “ppckungen”, “betalaperklick”, “carbzone” or any of the other sites run by this company, on any of our sites. — the administration
[Update 2005-11-04: the above has been edited in accordance to the wishes of H & N Consulting.]
[I’m as of this writing number three two in a google for the name of H&N’s CEO, hereafter referred to by the alias “XXX”].
This post by Stattin has been retroactively censored, which shows that the [redacted] XXX has some kind of pull in these matters. One wonders just what he’s trying to hide?
Update 2005-11-04: Someone calling themselves “Blogrankers” has a blog at blogrankers.blogspot.com. The one and only post made there has been removed. There is a cached copy on Bloglines (in Swedish).
There was a mildly interesting flamewar in the comments to the post, now no longer available. Someone calling him- or herself “stev” defended Blogrankers.com there, calling their detractors “Communists”. He used an English idiom in that he capitalized the initial letter of svenska (“Swedish”). Interestingly enough, this same quirk can be seen in the post referenced above.
Update 2005-10-28: Fredrik gets his letter.
Update 2005-11-01: I finally got my letter in the mail, threatening me with up to two years of prison for breaches of the Swedish data privacy law PUL, and my provider with legal proceedings if they did not remove the information. The letter was signed “H & N Consulting” but with no other contact information. The sender address was the same as the administrative contact for the domain “blogrankers.com”.
I agree with Bengt that these guys have no legal leg to stand on, but I am no lawyer. I don’t have time or energy to make an impassioned stance against the injustices of the situation. So I’m caving in to their demands. This also saves the legal community in Sweden a lot of bother they can do without.
I could say it’s scary that a company can use these kinds of scare tactics to silence valid criticism. The scariness is alleviated, however, by the sheer stupidity of their actions. They’ve managed to alienate a large number of influential voices in the Swedish blogging community, who, even if they will censor their posts, will never forget the name of the people who made them do it. I predict that the financial future of the company is bleak.
However, I did make an unwarranted assumption about XXX’s physical appearance. I wrote that he was covered in phlegm. As I have never met the person, this was uncalled for. I have no real way of knowing the what the physical aspect of the gentleman is. For any offense this comment may have caused, I apologize.
Update 2005-11-04: cleaned up and fixed links.
Update 2005-11-06: small edits and clarifications.