One of my favorite books to read with kids, aside from some of Dr. Seuss's classics, is Judith Viorst's Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day. Yes, I must confess. I think I was Alexander in another lifetime. Only now my past has caught up to me. The chewing gum of life has stuck itself in my hair, and my double-decker strawberry ice cream cone has hit the floor. It has probably left gooey pink splashes all over my new plain white sneakers, too.
It just seems that one thing after another keeps happening. Not in a day, but cumulatively. It just keeps building. You really wonder when this is going to end.
I don't even want to discuss the CafePress boards. If you've ever been a moderator in a public forum of culturally diverse people with varied opinions, you know it can be a challenge. That's probably enough said.
I own several name domains, mostly in conjunction with my CafePress stores. I know some folks with over 100 of them, but I'm not competing for the honor of domain-name princess. These are just very handy tools for getting around the world wide web.
One of my domains was born of an idea triggered by my annoyance at the neverending supply of unsolicited emails. And what do you call it? What the US government, Monty Python, and the rest of the cyberworld calls it -- spam.
On my site, the subject of this annoyance became not only a proud but fictitious foreign country, where everyone was deposed royalty trying to regain their rightful fortune, but also home of a camp for the underprivilged children. These children, of course, have the time of their young lives, while being trained to love life's greatest pleasures -- composing sad sob-stories in email, and revering credit card information and small greenish pictures of dead presidents. This very tongue-in-cheek site was called Camp Spam. Products bore phrases such as "I already gave all my money to budding scam artists at campspam.com" and "We {heart} George" (Washington). It seemed obvious it was all about unsolicited emails, many of which are specifically targeted to online shopkeepers.
Unfortunately, the people who sent me one email were not amused. They did not think the connection was obvious enough. They were a law firm. They did not contact CafePress, but came straight after me. I received a PDF and certified snail mail (with my name misspelled). This prestigious law firm said their client wanted me to cease and desist. Who was this client? Hormel, makers of SPAM.
I made changes. First, I changed the graphics to camp sp@m. This did not make them happy. I put in disclaimers. These have finally evolved into the following statement: "This store is NOT, never has been, and never will be affiliated with Hormel® or any of its products. "
They are still not happy. The legal department at CafePress has tried to intervene on my behalf, but the H. lawyers can't be bothered long enough to look at my site and see what changes have been made. It sounds like they want the happy, smiling faces of the Sp@manian campers to be against the thing that is their own livelihood. Ah, the irony of people who do not get irony.
All my campers are now hidden online (though I have a Camp shirt I still wear with pride). I even hid the "We {heart} George" shirts for now, though I'm thinking of bringing those back. I could add "We {heart} Abe," " We {heart} Andy," " We {heart} Ulysses," and "We {heart} Benjy" to them for an interesting section.
An example of my old designs:
I have just one design there now. The store section (and its parent basic store) now contain a lot of informational text and that design. I am adding the white tee as well, to give variation. Choice is good. Oh, I'll just make it six shirts. That's a nice number.
The new t-shirt design makes it clear what my designs are about: the CAN-SPAM ACT of 2003. I know this is really what Hormel wanted all along, so people would know what it is for which it stands. Oh -- I mean the US government act, not the little can of meat.
http://www.campspam.com
Ain't freedom wonderful?
Time for me to get ready for work. I'll have to tell about the other weird things another time.
Lorilei
3 comments:
Shouldn't Hormel be going after the government instead? Or really, they should probably just be spending more time watching out what goes INTO the spam in the first place. ;-)
Heehee. Perhaps they should go after Monty Python. (Spam, spam, spam, spam!) Then we can send Nearly Headless Nick after them. >:D
Yes, they need to take on the US government. But, wait, you can't sue them, can you? Well, how about Bill Gates, or AOL, or one of the other internet companies that "assassinate" spam? Maybe they're just too big.
So what would they get out of pushing me around? Would it solve all their problems? Will it make their product into health food or something? (Oops. I may need to delete that remark later.)
I know. They have the satisfaction of being seen as bullies. Of course. That's how every big company that relies on consumers wants to appear. Or is it?
Really, if you were that big, well-known company, would you hire a lawyer for this? How many thousands of dollars did they throw away just trying to intimidate me?
It's just more evidence that my life is a soap opera. Actually, maybe it would make a better sitcom. I'd ask for Sandra Bullock to play me, then.
Except they'd expect the main character of a successful comedy series to have some kind of romantic involvements. Like once a week. Give me a break. I have enough emotionally-dependent critters around here without a man in the mix.
I've already lived my life on the edge. I'm ready to settle down and do something more tranquil. Like hang-gliding. :/
Lorilei
Hormel should just change the name of their product to Mystery Meat & be done with it - Internet spam is not going to go away no matter how many "little people" they send lawyers out to hunt down & remove their email spam related mdse & related writings.
I doubt even Hormel has enough money to actually go after all the people in the US alone that talk about email spam everywhere on the Net.
I'm really sorry that they keep harassing you instead of actually doing something useful like fighting the email spam to get rid of it - that would make consumers happy & friendly towards them.
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