Four More Inducted Into The Streisand Effect Hall Of Shame
from the i'm-so-proud dept
It seems that my legacy is going to be the fact that I coined the term “The Streisand Effect” five years ago, and it’s now become part of the culture. It’s great to see the concept take off, though, and it’s pretty exciting to see the EFF update the takedown hall of shame it announced last year, with four new entries, exclaiming: “Hello Streisand Effect!” For the record, here are the EFF’s four latest inductees:
- Peabody Energy, for issuing outstandingly spurious trademark claims against a spoof site criticizing their “clean coal” group;
- Yahoo, for an impressive attempt to return a cat to the bag after a leak of its guide to snooping services for law enforcement was posted to a whistleblower site;
- Perez Hilton and the Miss Universe Organization for endeavoring to stop a non-profit from airing an ad commenting on a public same-sex marriage controversy initiated by their videos; and
- Universal Music Group, for attempting to muzzle online criticism of the rapper Akon.
Filed Under: hall of shame, streisand effect, takedowns
Companies: eff
Comments on “Four More Inducted Into The Streisand Effect Hall Of Shame”
Long live EFF and TechDirt
I thought the headline said indicted. It should be illegal to be this stupid.
Yahoo's Gall
Slightly interesting that Yahoo was simultaneously successful at thwarting MCS Music America’s claims of infringement by convincing the judge that MCS provided no actual proof of copyright. (as reported here) In that, Yahoo’s back and forth BS with Cryptome claimed they needed no proof of copyright themselves to demand the take down.
They had tried a similar bluff with us over some screen shots of Yahoo owned, pornographic Flickr webpages we had sent to some of their ad clients as proof of their companies’ unwitting sponsorship of that adult content. Yahoo even sent their ex-FBI bumbler of 9/11 terrorists and current head cyber-security guard, John Zent to attempt the shakedown.
That codger is such a douche his big ah-ha moment was taking a screen shot of a movie ad on my webpage, thinking it was me in some revelation as to my real identity, when it was the star of Paranormal. We forwarded that one to their abuse dept, reporting him as a possible phisher, so his security underlings could see what an idiot he was.
Almost as amusing as his failed intimidation of a political activist from Virginia for badgering Obama on his Flickr page, by threatening to call the Sunnyvale police on him. Zent’s list of failures are well documented and somewhat historic. Perfect match for Yahoo it seems.
Award?
They should give an award for the worst of them at the end of the year. They could call it the Mazzy.
I wish they would just muzzle Akon. His “singing” somehow reminds me of the AFLAC duck.
scrabulous effect
I’m still waiting for Scrabulous Effect to take off. Remember? When pursuing your legal rights is an epically boneheaded business move. Came from when Hasbro sued the writers of Facebook app Scrabulous for making Scrabble fun again. Good times!