Ask HN: Abusive-seeming legal threat from Semalt • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: Abusive-seeming legal threat from Semalt

#11

Post by rob_n » Fri, Jun 22, 2018, 10:46 AM UTC

We also recieved this letter from Semalt concerning a blog-article about referral spam.

We contacted our lawyer and he said that the reasons mentioned in the letter are rubbish. Our blog-article doesn't concern any trademark-violations and it certainly has nothing to do with GDPR.

The only critical point might be, if we said something wrong about them. But we have the facts and there are lots of other sites that say the same thing. So we won't delete or edit our article and we'll see if they really go to court and risk losing.

I hope some of you will do the same - that will make it easier for all of us!

Re: Ask HN: Abusive-seeming legal threat from Semalt

#12

Post by JDriver » Fri, Jun 22, 2018, 8:00 PM UTC

I've had exactly the same thing today in my spam box. I didn't open the attachment, but I assume it's regarding a negative article I wrote.

Everything I wrote was the truth, and I can back up everything I said, so I'm not concerned.

Re: Ask HN: Abusive-seeming legal threat from Semalt

#13

Post by pelorousjack » Sat, Jun 23, 2018, 1:14 PM UTC

I received this letter for my web site too, for an article that was published before I bought the site. Since I didn't write the article and couldn't even say if it was true or not, I just deleted it to avoid a possible fight. However, I do believe that their claims have no teeth and it is just a scare tactic. I emailed them back at their generic company address because they didn't even leave a reply-to address in the contact form.

Re: Ask HN: Abusive-seeming legal threat from Semalt

#14

Post by LynneHuysamen » Mon, Jun 25, 2018, 2:08 PM UTC

Yes I received the same letter. I did a review on Semalt on my website sharing my opinion which was not very flattering. Their letter said they are going to sue me for damages from 2014 until now.... however I didn't even have my domain purchased until 2015 and the review was obviously written even later than that. I removed my review from my website because I don't want any drama but I ignored their letter. They then sent the same letter to my domain registrar and they emailed me.

A legal letter should be very precise but their letter could not even get their dates right. On top of that it says to Sir/ Madam when my full name is clearly shown on my website. I can't take that seriously. They cannot even take the time to write my name?

Re: Ask HN: Abusive-seeming legal threat from Semalt

#15

Post by marcusneto » Mon, Jun 25, 2018, 3:12 PM UTC

I've been contacted too. I'm not planning on removing my article either. It feels like a bluff. I find it odd that their first course of action is to threaten legal action. Not exactly the way to win friends and influence people. If they really wanted to get on the right side of this they would acknowledge what they did and then approach people with an apology. Meh.

Re: Ask HN: Abusive-seeming legal threat from Semalt

#16

Post by geoprofi » Wed, Jun 27, 2018, 5:40 AM UTC

Same here, we have one of the most authoritative blog posts on the topic of referral spam and it, of course, mentions semalt who were one of the first to use this tactic of "promotion" of their service:

http://blog.analytics-toolkit.com/2015/guide-referrer-spam-g...

We got the same letters, sent to our ISP, instead of us, and we are a legal entity, easy to identify and contact in multiple ways. Legalese is shit, of course, we will stand our ground for sure. Unfortunately, due to procedures by our ISP we might need to temporarily remove a part of the content until the issue is resolved.

Re: Ask HN: Abusive-seeming legal threat from Semalt

#17

Post by Elephant94105 » Wed, Jun 27, 2018, 2:29 PM UTC

Same here. I think it's fair use, It's public service to fight spam. I don't think a judge will side with their argument that we're trying to take advantage of their great reputation :-).

Just like with any claim troll without merits, the best course of action is to ignore them.

Re: Ask HN: Abusive-seeming legal threat from Semalt

#18

Post by BugZapper » Thu, Jun 28, 2018, 6:59 PM UTC

geoprofi wrote: post #16

Same here, we have one of the most authoritative blog posts on the topic of referral spam and it, of course, mentions semalt who were one of the first to use this tactic of "promotion" of their service: http://blog.analytics-toolkit.com/2015/guide-referrer-spam-g... We got the same letters, sent to our ISP, instead of us, and we are a legal entity, easy to identify and contact in multiple ways. Legalese is shit, of c…

Just received one as well and was about to tell them to f*ck off but then I saw that every post on medium.com related to the topic has been suspended and now I'm not sure what to do about this...

The following google search shows what I mean: semalt site:medium.com

I'm not sure about medium's usual response to legal threats but if a big company like that probably with their own legal department has complied, one has to wonder...

Re: Ask HN: Abusive-seeming legal threat from Semalt

#19

Post by johnshon12 » Fri, Jul 06, 2018, 6:17 AM UTC

geoprofi wrote: post #16

Same here, we have one of the most authoritative blog posts on the topic of referral spam and it, of course, mentions semalt who were one of the first to use this tactic of "promotion" of their service: http://blog.analytics-toolkit.com/2015/guide-referrer-spam-g... We got the same letters, sent to our ISP, instead of us, and we are a legal entity, easy to identify and contact in multiple ways. Legalese is shit, of c…

Got the exact same email from them today. I removed it as I'm not a legal expert and thought it looked authentic, but glad to know they don't really have any legal power to do anything.

Re: Ask HN: Abusive-seeming legal threat from Semalt

#20

Post by jeffmuffdiver » Fri, Jul 06, 2018, 6:28 AM UTC

geoprofi wrote: post #16

Same here, we have one of the most authoritative blog posts on the topic of referral spam and it, of course, mentions semalt who were one of the first to use this tactic of "promotion" of their service: http://blog.analytics-toolkit.com/2015/guide-referrer-spam-g... We got the same letters, sent to our ISP, instead of us, and we are a legal entity, easy to identify and contact in multiple ways. Legalese is shit, of c…

Letter is rubbish. They wouldn't have the legal power to enforce anything. We received the same letter today.

For a number of reasons the letter is useless, and you shouldn't really do anything.

1. It's an email letter, legal letters for any court action need to delivered Registered post, so proof you have received it. This is relatively expensive to do. Especially at the scale they would like to do it at.