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What we did when a patent troll asked for our help

lessannoyingcrm.com

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Re: What we did when a patent troll asked for our help

#11

Post by dfxm12 »

You know, jury nullification is a thing. One aspect of this is when there is evidence to convict someone of a crime, the jury may choose to not convict if they feel the law is not just. This is a power granted to citizens (of the USA) to help us govern ourselves in in case our legal system becomes unjust or corrupt.

You are in the position of (some) power. By knowingly choosing to to help someone do something unethical, you contribute to furthering unethical behavior. Also, what is the difference between "a jerk ... speaking up" and "an asshole"? Is an asshole still an asshole if their business is legal?

I think you should reconsider your sign. It shouldn't say We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone, it should say Greed is good. Remember, all that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. Don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong with making money, but don't try and rationalize your ethics away.

Re: What we did when a patent troll asked for our help

#14

Post by the_bear »

(I work at the Less Annoying CRM)

Since a few people have brought up similar points, I'd like to address them here. My gut instinct was to tell the patent troll to fuck off. I still wish we had done that. But that would set a terrible precedent and turn us into something that I hate: the App Store

Pretty much everyone here hates how arbitrary and opaque the approval system is in the App Store. It seems like there's a post on HN almost every day ranting about this. If we don't have a clear set of guidelines for what we will and won't allow, how can any of our customers trust our service?

Another example: many of us are worried that Google might randomly shut down our accounts. This would be devastating. I'm sure that Google normally only shuts down accounts with good cause, but they still are developing a reputation for being a company you can't trust. We can't afford to give our customers a reason to worry about that happening with our service.

So the question is, is there a way to tell the patent troll to go screw himself without jeopardizing our trustworthiness with our real customers?

Re: What we did when a patent troll asked for our help

#15

Post by [deleted] »

kriro wrote: post #9

I think every business should be opinionated to some degree. Call it ethics if you must. I would snapcancel that account but not snoop around in data and actively try to find people that offend me to boot them. If they tell you they do something that you have ethical objections against shut down their account. Just imagine how you'd feel if he'd use your system to troll 5k people. I think the law shouldn't be your ul…

[deleted]

Re: What we did when a patent troll asked for our help

#16

Post by mojowo11 »

the_bear wrote: post #14

(I work at the Less Annoying CRM) Since a few people have brought up similar points, I'd like to address them here. My gut instinct was to tell the patent troll to fuck off. I still wish we had done that. But that would set a terrible precedent and turn us into something that I hate: the App Store Pretty much everyone here hates how arbitrary and opaque the approval system is in the App Store. It seems like there's a…

(Yeah, this is actually our CEO, Tyler.)

Re: What we did when a patent troll asked for our help

#17

Post by mojowo11 »

andrewcooke wrote: post #8

but why can't you be arbitrary (within the confines of the law)? particularly a small company. you don't have to justify your actions - just don't work with people you don't want to. why does it have to be consistent or logical? just say "fuck em" and move on... what, in short, is so bad about being faithful to what you feel ?

You might be right. As much as telling this guy to fuck off would have felt great, though, it also felt wrong to us to inject our opinions into it. But, well, I could probably be convinced by your perspective, too -- which is why I wrote this post.

I suppose one consideration would be a legal one. We're not legal experts, and for some entities, turning them away for being distasteful or what they believe -- based on what we feel -- could be considered discrimination.

And finally, we think having some consistency is pretty important. Sure, we could just do this case-by-case and that, frankly, would be pretty nice. But it's also not really fair to our users, I think, who should know that we work with some kind of framework in making decisions so that they don't have to worry about us getting pissed off and shutting down their account for (what they see as) insufficient reason.

Re: What we did when a patent troll asked for our help

#18

Post by tzs »

How did he know they were a patent troll? From the description, they sound like the original owner of the patent, the patent appears to be newly granted, and we don't know if they are practicing the patent themselves or not.

There is some variation in the meaning of "patent troll", but an original owner practicing the patent promptly going after people who infringe is not a patent troll under most accepted definitions.

Re: What we did when a patent troll asked for our help

#19

Post by stephengillie »

huhtenberg wrote: post #4

Am I missing something? I want my two minutes back. > What we did when a patent troll asked for our help? I gave the patent troll a demo of our system, complete with genuine recommendations about how he could best track his entire process from start to end. ... While we did set up customization for him, ...

This is just a publicity stunt for this company. It's an ad.

"Oh hey look, we have patent trolls using our product"

Re: What we did when a patent troll asked for our help

#20

Post by zacharyvoase »

I semi-agree with what you did in this case, and here's why.

If you had spontaneously canceled his account, without having stipulated what kind of behaviour you find unacceptable in the Terms of Service beforehand, he could rightfully accuse you of being capricious and arbitrary. As a customer, that kind of action on your part would definitely make me think twice before signing up. Even though I'm not a patent troll, what if you some day decided that what I was using it for was also unacceptable? Speaking of the letter of the law, the ToS that you both agreed to didn't mention anything about patent trolling being out of bounds.

What I would do in future is maintain a list of un-OK uses as a schedule to the ToS, but grandfather existing clients into the old ToS (perhaps with a 30 day grace period, allowing customers to export all of their data). In the case of customers using the software to do things you don't like, rather than terminate their account, just politely ask them to take their custom elsewhere (with no obligation to do so). I think you'll find that most people would rather be where they're wanted.

Caveat: IANAL. You might not be able to do that sort of thing (although I'm nearly sure you can).

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