[HN Gopher] How to deal with receiving a cease-and-desist letter...
___________________________________________________________________
How to deal with receiving a cease-and-desist letter from Big Tech
Author : louisbarclay
Score : 373 points
Date : 2024-01-30 14:57 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (12challenges.substack.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (12challenges.substack.com)
| lazlobarclay wrote:
| thanks for this, it was a great read
| louisbarclay wrote:
| Thanks brother. By which I mean, you are literally my brother
| Mordisquitos wrote:
| Given the acknowledgement that cease-and-desist letters from Big
| Tech may be for the purpose of bullying, false, and fully
| unenforceable, I'm disappointed that the possibility of referring
| the sender to _' Arkell v. Pressdram'_ [0] didn't even get
| mentioned.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_Eye#Libel_cases
| louisbarclay wrote:
| Love it - will add a section with more innovative approaches
| like this
|
| e.g. was just chatting with a fellow cease-and-desist receiver,
| Mohammed Shah, who finds comfort in using a different
| misspelling for the name of the lawyer harassing him, every
| time he replies
|
| Great for morale
| cjs_ac wrote:
| _Private Eye_ also does this, and not only in legal
| correspondence.
|
| > The magazine often deliberately misspells the names of
| certain organisations, such as "Crapita" for the outsourcing
| company Capita, "Carter-Fuck" for the law firm Carter-Ruck,
| and " _The Grauniad_ " for _The Guardian_ (the latter a
| reference to the newspaper 's frequent typos in its days as
| _The Manchester Guardian_ ). Certain individuals may be
| referred to by another name, for example, Piers Morgan as
| "Piers Moron", Richard Branson as "Beardie", Rupert Murdoch
| as the "Dirty Digger", and Queen Elizabeth II and King
| Charles III as "Brenda" and "Brian", respectively.[0]
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_Eye#In-jokes
| MR4D wrote:
| This is a vey well written article - I highly recommend anyone
| who owns a firm to read this - even if you don't work with Big
| Tech, it is still very useful.
| alexpetralia wrote:
| Great compilation of tips
| localhost3000 wrote:
| Used to periodically get a c&d email from FB lawyers for some
| harmless software I published. Always completely ignored it, not
| even responding to acknowledge receipt. It eventually stopped. I
| figure they gave up and focused their efforts on targets who
| showed they would be responsive to threats. It was 100% bullying.
| louisbarclay wrote:
| super useful to know - could I interview you about this to add
| to the guide? you can find contact details on my personal site
| louis.work
| pydry wrote:
| Was it trademark related?
| dawnerd wrote:
| Similar back when apps on profiles were a thing. Apparently
| doing things like creating a scoreboard for pokes was against
| the terms.
| londons_explore wrote:
| Even acknowledging receipt gives them a lot of power.
|
| Remember that they probably have a list of hundreds or
| thousands of C&D's to send, and if you don't respond they would
| probably need to file a john doe lawsuit to get your identity
| from your ISP, and it's unlikely that all that effort is worth
| it to them.
| ericmcer wrote:
| It would be funny if legal teams at huge companies have OKRs
| and evaluations. "You hit your target of 250 C&Ds this
| quarter great work". Justifying your paycheck is scarier when
| thinking about the legal dept.
| litenboll wrote:
| Do you know they don't? Otherwise I would assume they have
| dumb incentives like that. In my previous company the legal
| team measured the number of "takedowns" of countefeit merch
| etc. as a key number. I assume this helped to hurt their
| effort to prevent counterfeit in the first place.
| edm0nd wrote:
| Good ole Perkins Coie.
| KieranMac wrote:
| It is worth pointing out that FB has a long history of
| litigating this issue, from Power Ventures, to BrandTotal, to
| Octoparse, to Voyager Labs and more. And they have about 80-90%
| track record of success. Obviously, they send C&Ds more often
| than they file litigation. But to act as if this is a
| completely idle threat is naive.
| zanfr wrote:
| easy, there is a convenient device called a trashcan this is
| where such letters go
| systems_glitch wrote:
| Remember, though, that in many places ignoring something can
| put you at risk for a default judgement at a later date. It'd
| be _nice_ if we could just ignore troll trash : /
| patmcc wrote:
| Ignoring a court summons or lawsuit or something, sure,
| that's risky, don't do that. Last thing you want is a default
| judgement.
|
| A C&D letter? Nah, you're 100% safe (legally) to throw that
| in the garbage.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| The main potential _legal_ impact of a C &D letter is that,
| to the extent that _notice_ is relevant to the existence or
| degree of liability, itay give you enhanced liability after
| the letter than what you had before. Other than that, yeah,
| its just basically a formally-written "please stop" letter.
|
| Of course, there's always a possibility that the party
| sending it follows through on the at-least-implicit threat
| of litigation.
| lgleason wrote:
| The best thing to do is to know that law and your legal rights.
| Anybody can write a cease and desist. It is a first step towards
| a lawsuit, but given how inexpensive they are to write they are
| an easy way to intimidate small businesses.
| louisbarclay wrote:
| Yep, that's true - also something I need to reflect in the
| guide is it's important to understand which jurisdiction you're
| under, since that'll affect your rights
|
| Usually the terms of service you sign up to make it clear which
| jurisdiction disputes would be adjudicated in
|
| For me, as a UK citizen/resident it was Ireland. Which is great
| since I've never been there, but I've heard their courtrooms
| are lovely in the springtime
| ransom1538 wrote:
| I worked on a controversial app. I generally take the letter
| then throw it into the trash. I did this for 4 years, never had
| an issue. Github was the only one that seemed to want blood -
| then banned me. They would send me weird emails, trying to
| trick me to admit fault. They would also track new accounts I
| made (ip) and send taunting letters. They gave up eventually
| too.
|
| Looking back, these companies can send these things out for no
| cost, looking for you to mess up by replying. If they want to
| sue you, don't worry, it will happen.
| JohnFen wrote:
| > If they want to sue you, don't worry, it will happen.
|
| As my attorney once opined: if they really want to sue you,
| the first thing you'll hear from them will be about the
| lawsuit they filed, not a C&D.
| denton-scratch wrote:
| On the NANAE newsgroup, law firms would often pop up
| threatening legal action against blocklist maintainers or
| mailadmins; the standard response was "Where is your
| writ?".
| KieranMac wrote:
| The best way to perform surgery is to read a few articles
| online and then get to cutting!
|
| It is certainly true that anyone can respond to a C&D letter.
| But whether you can do so without doing more harm than good is
| another question.
| irisgrunn wrote:
| How would something like this go with an open source project?
| Other people could have forked it already, so taking everything
| down is impossible.
| rwmj wrote:
| Someone tried this with an open source project I ran called
| bitmatch (now bitstring: https://ocaml.org/p/bitstring/latest/d
| oc/Bitstring/index.htm...). They were running some scanning
| software that matched bits inside binaries, and felt they could
| threaten anyone who dared to use the word "bitmatch".
| Trademarks don't work like that since they only protect a
| narrow field of endeavour, not "no one can ever use this word".
|
| They sent the C&D to my employer which made everything much
| more complex. I usually would have ignored it, but my
| employer's legal department was on my back about it, so I
| renamed the project to bitstring. For years my project was
| still top of Google search for "bitmatch". (I tried it now and
| I notice it's a different, Rust project, so the guy still
| didn't win in the end.)
| JohnFen wrote:
| You are not responsible for what other people do, only what you
| do. If you feel the need to comply with a C&D by, for instance,
| taking down your work, you take down the repositories you are
| in control of and don't worry about others who forked the work.
| Worrying about them is the complaining company's job.
| louisbarclay wrote:
| I am completely unclear on whether publishing your project open
| source gives it (at least, the code, if not any deployed
| version) any kind of protection if Facebook etc. target it
|
| I would love to get a lawyer's take on that, although I guess
| it would differ by jurisdiction - California and Ireland are
| probably the two key ones for most big tech
| mvkel wrote:
| Cease and desist letters are cold emails.
|
| It can scary to receive one, but once you unwind what the
| accusing party has to gain from it, you realize it has as much
| teeth as a tweet.
| User23 wrote:
| They can perhaps be used to establish willful infringement if
| it ever does go to court.
| KieranMac wrote:
| Also, notice is a component of many legal claims.
| jpm_sd wrote:
| Suggested edit: in your "handy rule of thumb", delete
| outside of official APIs or services
|
| since (1) official APIs and services are constantly getting
| redefined and (2) what's stopping them from deciding they just
| don't like how you're using the official APIs/services?
| louisbarclay wrote:
| Good point. And thinking about it, I know cases where people
| have received C&Ds anyway while only using official APIs and
| services. Will edit
| JohnFen wrote:
| This is a great writeup.
|
| I am not a lawyer, but I've received several C&Ds for various
| things over the decades. The first one scared me to death. The
| second and subsequent ones did not, because I understood what
| they were: just the company saying "I don't like what you're
| doing".
|
| When I receive a C&D, the first thing I do is talk to my attorney
| and go over what the C&D is complaining about. If I think I'm
| doing something that could be legally risky (which does not
| automatically mean doing something actually wrong), then I change
| that. Otherwise, my attorney acknowledges that the C&D was
| received and I ignore it. If they really have a serious beef with
| what I'm doing, they need to actually sue me. I have yet to be
| sued.
| mysterydip wrote:
| What's the proper course of action if you don't have an
| attorney?
| throwup238 wrote:
| If you eat the stationary that the C&D is printed on, it's
| like it never existed (IANAL).
| gwright wrote:
| I'm going to avoid the snarky "hire an attorney" answer but
| once you get past that necessary first step I do have a few
| tips: * get comfortable reading legal
| documents, this will allow you to have more
| intelligent conversations with your attorney * don't
| let your attorney make your business decisions, one of their
| jobs is to point out risks, one of your jobs
| (owner/ceo/leadership) is to figure out how to
| mitigate risk but that is not the same thing as avoiding all
| risks * learn to draft legalese, it will help
| minimize your attorney's billable hours
| mysterydip wrote:
| I appreciate that. As someone with a hobby making software,
| I can see the need for hiring at some point but I don't
| even know where to start. Do you just look up one online
| and call and say "I got a nasty letter, will you be my
| attorney"? Is there some kind of ongoing subscription cost
| to keep being "my attorney" or just pay per hour when you
| have an issue?
| chociej wrote:
| For small, transactional dealings where the amount of
| work is easy to predict, there may just be a fixed fee
| for that.
|
| For more open-ended work, it is often billed by the hour
| (time and expense). If the work is non-trivial, they may
| ask for a retainer, which is a down payment against
| future hourly work and expenses incurred by the firm.
|
| Another common billing model, called contingency, is
| generally reserved for cases where the firm is optimistic
| they will be able to receive a significant monetary
| judgment or settlement, which they will take part of for
| their time and effort.
| hiddencost wrote:
| Getting connected to an attorney by someone you trust is
| the best path. Just picking one after googling is
| dangerous.
|
| Expect to pay more than you expect to pay.
|
| ETA: America is a "pay to play" country, and those
| payments are mediated by lawyers. What I mean is:
| enforcement of laws mostly happens via suing people, and
| you need to be able to pay an attorney to win that suit.
| ncallaway wrote:
| I'd start by asking people around you if they know an
| attorney. Recommendations from people you know will
| almost always be more valuable than a Google search.
|
| If you don't know anyone that would be in the area of law
| that you're looking for, ask for _any_ attorney
| recommendations, then ask those attorneys for
| recommendations for people in the area of law you need.
|
| If you absolutely cannot find a lawyer through people you
| know (and, really, try asking people), then you can look
| up a lawyer referral service for your state. Most state
| or county bars will have some program for making
| referrals to lawyers. Often these will have a low-ish
| flat fee, which will get your a short initial
| consultation with a few lawyers in the relevant area of
| law.
|
| For billing, it's something to ask your lawyer, thought
| most lawyers will have some kind of billing program where
| you pay hourly for what you use, and don't need to pay
| some ongoing fee just to have the lawyer as "your
| lawyer". Small business that only need a lawyer for a few
| hours a couple times a year aren't uncommon clients for
| business lawyers.
| KieranMac wrote:
| The problem with this advice is that this is a very niche
| area of law. Unless the people you know have had prior
| experiences with data-access/web-scraping legal issues, a
| generalist recommendation is very unlikely to be helpful
| here.
| ncallaway wrote:
| > If you don't know anyone that would be in the area of
| law that you're looking for, ask for _any_ attorney
| recommendations, then ask those attorneys for
| recommendations for people in the area of law you need.
|
| Attorneys know attorneys. I'd still recommend starting
| with your network, then asking those attorneys who they
| would recommend for the services you need. Or ask them if
| they know anyone that might be able to refer you.
| KieranMac wrote:
| There are probably two dozen specialists on this issue
| nationwide. A properly targeted Google search will
| outperform your personal network of attorneys (and their
| network of attorneys) 99.9% of the time.
| JohnFen wrote:
| > I can see the need for hiring at some point but I don't
| even know where to start.
|
| I have advice for this. Most attorneys, at least in my
| area, will sit down and talk with you at no charge. My
| advice is to take advantage of this _before_ you have an
| actual issue that needs attention and talk with a few of
| them. Investigate them, talk to their clients if you can,
| ask about them with professional organizations, etc.
|
| And then just use them for routine stuff every so often.
| Run contracts by them before you sign, etc. The idea is
| that you want to develop a relationship with them so that
| you and they know each other. Then, if something comes up
| where you really need an attorney, yours is already very
| familiar with you and what you're doing.
|
| > Is there some kind of ongoing subscription cost to keep
| being "my attorney" or just pay per hour when you have an
| issue?
|
| There is a concept of keeping an attorney "on retainer"
| -- which basically means prepaying for legal services. At
| a small scale, this isn't worth doing. Treat your
| attorney like your auto mechanic: keep a relationship
| going, go to them for your oil changes and other routine
| stuff, and pay by the hour. Then when you need important
| work done, they're primed and ready.
| KieranMac wrote:
| This is all good advice.
| chaps wrote:
| I often need legal support for things (CFAA threat every
| few years and litigation for FOIA work), and this list
| matches my experiences. A lot of the work is just building
| a relationship with an attorney or firm you can trust.
| phasetransition wrote:
| As the (non lawyer) who fell into managing all US legal
| firm interactions for my day job, I support this list.
|
| If you are comfortable with legal documents; have a law
| dictionary to understand what specific language means; and
| read historical case law on the topic in question, you will
| be well prepared to have a seat at the table with your
| attorneys.
| feoren wrote:
| > read historical case law on the topic in question
|
| Is this even at all accessible to anyone who isn't
| already in a major law firm? I'm assuming it requires
| some sort of thousand-dollar subscription to an
| exploitative publishing house?
| rendaw wrote:
| Okay, since you failed to avoid the snarky "hire an
| attorney" thing, I'm going to ask: how much would it
| reasonably cost to hire an attorney for advice on this?
| Assuming the contacting lawyer is on shaky ground. No "it
| depends" please, a ballpark.
|
| Maybe it's cheaper to have one on retainer. How much per
| month, if like a normal citizen your only daily legal risks
| are random megacorporations threatening you?
|
| Should everyone in the US have a lawyer on call? Should we
| consider it a normal tax for being a member of the US legal
| system? An insurance everyone signs up for like drivers
| insurance and life insurance? Is this only a concern for
| software developers?
| coldpie wrote:
| > Should everyone in the US have a lawyer on call?
|
| I had a coworker at a previous job who often talked about
| "her family's attorney." I'm like, families have
| attorneys? I don't think I've talked to a lawyer once in
| my life.
| nick222226 wrote:
| I would guess later in life when your insurance agent or
| tax prep person find out you didn't fill out a will yet
| and introduces you or encourages you to have an attorney
| write one with you. Now your family has an attorney! That
| or going through a family estate.
| Culonavirus wrote:
| A coworker's wife's friend is an attorney. So he's "his
| family's attorney" now, because of course he is. My
| landlord is a dentist, so he's my dentist now, because of
| course he is... That's how it mostly works... I guess :P
| HeyLaughingBoy wrote:
| The only time I've ever needed a lawyer was for a small
| side business I had at the time. One of our customers had
| an unpaid invoice that was past 90 days, and they were
| not responding to phone calls. Happily, my business
| partner's brother was a lawyer and she asked him to send
| out a dunning letter. We had the money within days :-)
| Culonavirus wrote:
| Yea, they're a useful bunch, especially if you know one.
| Back when I worked for an e-commerce site, we were
| deciding if we're gonna implement package splitting CoD
| (cash on delivery) for multi-package orders, or if we're
| gonna just slap the entire sum on the first package (this
| seems like an easy enough job, but when you have many
| shipping service APIs you have to work with and you have
| automated CoD back-reporting that goes into your
| invoicing, it becomes annoying). We did the easier thing
| and just sent a pre-drafted dunning letter to people who
| took the CoD-less packages for free and did not pay for
| the first one with CoD. Worked like a charm.
| wharvle wrote:
| I always feel like there's a whole rule-book of "how to
| Do Life" that I didn't get, for this easing-into-the-
| upper-middle-class and/or doing-serious-business-stuff
| shit, that other people _just know_ , because of who
| their families are and who they grew up hanging out with.
|
| I gather the version of that I _did_ get was the middle-
| class version--which some others didn 't get and have a
| similar "wait, that's just _normal_? " reaction as I do
| to the upper-middle stuff. Like 90% of that's basically
| credit-related--how credit cards work and how to use
| them, how to build credit, how to buy a house (generally
| with a mortgage, so, still basically a credit-related
| thing), that kind of stuff.
|
| I've noticed similar things when it comes to paying
| others to do stuff for me. Having a house cleaner come in
| for the first time was fucking _weird_. Still is, really.
| I can 't relax, feel like I ought to be helping. Or
| paying someone to do work on my house that I _could_ do--
| tiling, drywalling, some light electrical, plumbing, most
| general home-improvement stuff. It feels gross--I don 't
| think it does for those who grew up with that stuff being
| normal. I suspect it's a barrier to advancing in
| business, because those attitudes carry over. Delegation
| is _weird_ to me. Being someone 's boss is horribly
| uncomfortable. The notion of starting a business and
| hiring employees to take over stuff I've been doing feels
| icky and wrong, and no amount of one part of my brain
| telling another part to knock it off makes that go away.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| Yep I'm with you, I am absolutely loathe to hire anyone
| to do something I could do myself. I've done major home
| repairs, painting, flooring, kitchen and bath remodels, I
| do almost all my own auto repairs and maintenance, I do
| my own laundry, I clean my own house, I cut my own grass.
| I have neighbors who just pay for someone to do all that
| without a second thought.
| KieranMac wrote:
| There are certain tasks that you would never do yourself,
| such as surgery. And there are certain tasks like
| changing your oil where anyone with patience and
| diligence can do it themselves. It's just a question of
| whether you want to spend the time to learn it and do it.
|
| Responding to a C&D letter from a Fortune 50 company, I
| would posit, is more like performing surgery than
| changing your oil. The cost of being wrong is rather
| high.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| Right, that's the "I could do myself" part.
|
| Though I've generally been disappointed with the legal
| services I've hired. Law and medicine seems like most
| professions, there are some really good practitioners and
| a lot who are mediocre but have passed the minimum
| required qualifications, and it's hard for an outsider to
| immediately spot the difference.
| KieranMac wrote:
| Speaking of surgery, here's an analogy that might be
| helpful.
|
| Five years ago I had a catastrophic ankle injury I
| suffered while running in Moab. Two broken bones, lots of
| torn ligaments, and otherwise irreparable damage without
| serious surgery.
|
| I interviewed a whole bunch of surgeons before I decided
| where to go under the knife. And I don't remember where I
| got the advice, but someone told me the most important
| question to ask is: "How many times have you performed
| this specific surgery (a Maisonneuve fracture repair)?"
|
| I eventually found the Steadman clinic and a doctor who
| had already performed the exact surgery I needed nearly
| 100 times. Everyone else's answer was less than 5. Some
| even answered 0. The surgical clinic I used had signed
| pictures of professional athletes all over the wall. I
| found the true specialist, and I'm very thankful that I
| did.
|
| Even bad lawyers and surgeons are expensive. When you
| have a bet-the-business legal issue, do plenty of
| advanced interviewing to make sure that the one you hire
| has plenty of experience with the exact issue you need
| help with. If it's not obvious that you've found the
| right person, keep looking.
| JohnFen wrote:
| > Having a house cleaner come in for the first time was
| fucking weird. Still is, really. I can't relax, feel like
| I ought to be helping.
|
| A long time ago, I had a house cleaner come in once per
| week to do deep cleaning stuff. It was quite a luxury!
| However, I always spent a couple of hours cleaning the
| house in preparation for their arrival.
|
| What I've noticed is a shift with age and wealth. When I
| was young and poor, I had time and energy in abundance
| and never hired people to do anything for me (excepting
| for specialized things like medical care). Now that I'm
| old and more comfortable, I don't have any issue hiring
| people to do things I can technically do myself.
|
| I look at it this way: whether you hire someone or DIY
| it, you're paying something to get it done. If not money,
| then time and effort. I just pay in the manner that, big
| picture, costs me the least. When young and poor, my time
| and effort was worth less than actual money. Now, money
| is often worth less than my time and effort.
|
| Is it worth paying $50 to have the neighborhood kid mow
| my lawn for me? Younger me would say absolutely not.
| Current me says absolutely.
| tgsovlerkhgsel wrote:
| I think in most Western countries, "low triple digits" is
| a good ballpark estimate for "advice" - i.e. a "holy shit
| this is like a month's worth of living cost" amount if
| you're a poor student, or completely negligible if you
| work in a highly paying job.
|
| You might even get an initial consult for free. You may
| also be entitled to a free consultation via an insurance,
| including collective insurances or assistance programs
| offered through your employer or associations that you're
| a member of.
| phasetransition wrote:
| Most smaller firms will require a retainer. $5k is fairly
| common. I've been able to work with several large firms
| for work, and several smaller firms for personal stuff.
|
| Personally, I much prefer the larger firms. In general
| their work product, responsiveness, and timeliness is
| well ahead of small firms. They aren't even that much
| more expensive for some things. Unfortunately I don't
| know what the retainer $$ would be, if any, for a larger
| firm.
| phendrenad2 wrote:
| Sigh. 5k is three months rent for many people. It's not
| surprising that we don't see more bootstrapped startups
| from underprivileged people.
| zhengyi13 wrote:
| Depending on whose advice you value, Deviant Ollam has a
| video on YouTube entitled "Lawyer, Passport, Locksmith,
| Gun"[1] where he makes the argument that yeah, you
| probably should have a lawyer as part of a broader
| personal risk-reduction strategy.
|
| (I understand folk might take particular issue with that
| last as part of "risk reduction", but I hope that doesn't
| detract from the earlier parts of the strategy)
|
| [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ihrGNGesfI
| brendoelfrendo wrote:
| The reason why "it depends" is so often the answer is
| because legal questions are very situational and fact-
| specific. You'd need to consult with a lawyer on your
| specific situation to get an answer.
|
| But, generally speaking, a quick consult and having a
| lawyer write a response letter is a few hundred dollars.
| Let's ballpark it as $300-1000, depending on the nature
| of the case. Now, that's assuming that the company that
| sent you the C&D doesn't sue you. If they sue you and you
| go to court, the lawyer fees go up quite a bit and become
| pretty much impossible to ballpark (though I'm sure
| someone has tried).
|
| Having a lawyer on retainer isn't really necessary. It
| might be something you do if you're a business that
| doesn't have a lawyer on staff, but you want access to a
| lawyer's time when you need it. For most regular folks, I
| can't imagine setting up a retainer until you need to
| engage a lawyer for a case and want to guarantee their
| time.
| JohnFen wrote:
| My attorney charges me about $200/hr. Most things I talk
| to him about require less than an hour of billable time.
|
| Also, I've been working with him for so long (including
| on a few nontrivial things like selling companies) that
| he often doesn't charge me at all for trivial things.
| hodgesrm wrote:
| > * get comfortable reading legal documents, this will
| allow you to have more intelligent conversations with your
| attorney
|
| Another tip. Hire an attorney who will teach you how to do
| this effectively. A simple rule of thumb is to consult with
| an attorney when you don't understand something. A good
| attorney will walk you through the issue, explain the
| possible ramifications, and (most importantly!) show you
| the standard response(s). Next time you can do it yourself.
| Also, you'll ask more focused questions the next time a
| novel issue pops up on that topic. That also saves money.
|
| In summary, think of your attorney as a mentor not a robot
| to provide legal advice.
| NikolaNovak wrote:
| I feel in particular your second point is similar to a
| security officer. Their job is to identify risk and propose
| the safest approach. But in extreme, the safest approach is
| to shutdown and do nothing - the only truly unbreakable
| system.
|
| For any functioning system, ultimately a business owner
| will need to decide (formally and explicitly, or informally
| and implicitly) what risk they're willing to accept to
| proceed.
|
| What you're saying I think is that you should be _informed
| enough_ to have an intelligent conversation with your
| attorney, and be able to make decisions on what risk they
| point out you 're willing to take, and/or how you can
| mitigate it without just avoiding/shutting down?
| JohnFen wrote:
| My main piece of advice is to get an attorney, preferably one
| who has experience in your industry.
|
| They know more about how this stuff really works than you or
| I ever will, and you won't be able to judge what risk you're
| really taking without that knowledge.
|
| But, if I were operating "without a net" like that (which I
| would never do!), and I really felt that the C&D was about
| something I wasn't doing wrong, I'd be inclined to ignore it.
| There's chance that you'll end up being sued, though, so you
| should be prepared for that possibility. That means you'll
| need an attorney anyway, and it will cost more than
| consulting one about a C&D to begin with.
| HeyLaughingBoy wrote:
| > They know more about how this stuff really works
|
| That's really the key. I used to work for a very small
| company that happened to have an attorney as one of the
| owners (there were a _lot_ of cooks in that particular
| kitchen!). One day he came to me with a letter from a large
| RAM manufacturer demanding payment for a license on some
| technology I don 't even remember. His only question was
| "do we use anything they make as far as you know?"
|
| "Nope."
|
| "OK. It's just a fishing expedition." Balls up the letter,
| throws in the trash and walks away.
| bigfatfrock wrote:
| Multiple C&Ds?! You make me realize I might not be living the
| adventure I should be.
| nostromo wrote:
| They're usually more boring than you might realize. For
| example, if your new business's trademark is similar to an
| established company's.
| JohnFen wrote:
| Yes. Most of the C&Ds I've received have been mundane. My
| favorite one was over a set of game rules that I wrote that
| were very vaguely similar to a board game that was on the
| market.
|
| That one was so ridiculous that I didn't consult my
| attorney at all about it. I just told the company to sue
| me. I never heard from them again.
| ben_w wrote:
| Mine was where a customer who had signed a contract with
| ${company} to make and distribute an app, sent a C&D to
| stop distributing the app.
|
| Not even sure how that happened. New lawyer? Lost
| paperwork?
| zamadatix wrote:
| Yeah, we received one about having t-shirts that said
| "network ninja" for instance. We held a small party that
| afternoon celebrating that someone actually noticed our
| marketing.
| JohnFen wrote:
| I think I've just been doing this for a long time.
| stephenhuey wrote:
| Before we sold our fintech SaaS startup in 2015, we received
| a C&D from Dealogic and I thought, wow, we've made it into
| the big leagues! My adrenaline wore off pretty quickly
| though, because after our attorney sent them a defiant letter
| warning their London law firm to not mess with a Texas LLC,
| we never heard from them again. We were flying below the
| radar, so we just surmised some Dealogic customer had showed
| a Dealogic sales rep our product, and they probably carpet
| bomb anytime they see anyone playing anywhere near their
| entrenched & wildly expensive product.
| hnthrowaway0328 wrote:
| Never heard about Dealogic so I just Googled -- the title
| of the click says:
|
| > Dealogic: A trusted partner to top financial firms
| worldwide
|
| Oh well, I probably don't need to dig deeper to know what
| it does then.
| pinkmuffinere wrote:
| At the risk of sounding very dumb -- what were you able
| to determine from that? I have no idea what it means,
| almost sounds like the mafia
|
| Edit: their about page sounds even more mafia-esque.
| "Dealogic connects banks and investors in the only truly
| global network... Firms who use Dealogic see results in
| increased profitability and productivity... Whether you
| want to analyze wallet share, execute a deal, align
| operating units, manage risk, or comply with regulation,
| there is only one answer."
| dpedu wrote:
| > what were you able to determine from that
|
| I interpret this as: a company that is successful not
| because it provides a service that is useful or good, but
| one that other companies - in this case "financial firms"
| - are FORCED to buy, usually through compliance or
| regulatory means.
|
| Think of it like an auto insurance company advertising
| themselves as "your trusted partner on the roads." Yeah I
| guess, but it's still meaningless.
| stephenhuey wrote:
| I'm not as familiar with the compliance part of their
| solution, so there could be some of what you're talking
| about. I don't think their software is totally useless,
| just possibly, um, over-priced, and needing competitors.
| :)
|
| Our lightweight SaaS was focused on analytics related to
| share of wallet and return on capital and improving
| insights into client relationships. With our tool, an
| investment banker could perform some tasks in seconds or
| minutes that normally an MD expected a junior analyst to
| do in hours or days. Not rocket science, but useful. And
| not as expensive as Dealogic. I wish I could say our
| creation was taking the world by storm, but we haven't
| been involved for many years and as so often happens with
| acquisitions, they didn't really execute well on our
| original target audience and took it in another
| direction.
| cutemonster wrote:
| The answer is to have Dealogic give them an offer they
| cannot refuse?
| EdwardDiego wrote:
| It's sounds like the EPIC pitch in the EHR sector.
|
| EPIC - because everyone else is using it, and boy it sure
| is hard for our large company to share data with a
| competitor's product, be a shame if a patient suffered
| because of it.
|
| But at least it's only in one market, which meant the
| Feds could step in.
| https://www.healthit.gov/topic/information-blocking
| michaelbuckbee wrote:
| Over the years, I've collected quite a few C&Ds from various
| projects:
|
| - Google for creating a mention tracker I was distributing as
| a mac dashboard widget
|
| - Netflix for creating a DVD barcode to Netflix queue ios app
| (they were trying to to antagonize their retail partners too
| much at the time apparently)
|
| - Microsoft for abusing some of their early text to speech
| DLL's for a really crappy RSS to Audio "podcast" app (they
| were meant for server side telephony apps)
|
| - LinkedIn + Salesforce for linking their data with a Chrome
| extension
|
| - Hubspot for mentioning their Inbound conference and saying
| that my software worked with theirs
|
| Thinking back now these are all quite old, I don't know if
| the companies have become more lenient or I've become more
| cautious.
| hodgesrm wrote:
| > I am not a lawyer, but I've received several C&Ds for various
| things over the decades. The first one scared me to death.
|
| The first time I got a letter for a trademark issue it seemed
| completely hostile and threatening. My lawyer said, basically,
| that it was no big deal and that they were in fact being pretty
| nice. We answered back and everything was resolved amicably. It
| actually turned out well because it made me realize we had not
| been paying enough attention and were unthinkingly referencing
| other brands instead of our own.
| bokohut wrote:
| Multiple C&D recipient here as well which upon receiving the
| first, as some commenters have shared, I too may have needed an
| underwear change while reading the legal verbiage. However as
| with many things in life though once you get through the
| initial experience the latter experiences only get easier. My
| personal take is I must be doing something of value if other's
| lawyers are writing me threatening letters. IANAL so YMMV
| person23 wrote:
| >once you get through the initial experience the latter
| experiences only get easier.
|
| Just for clarification, do you mean soiling your underwear or
| dealing with a C&D?
| hyperdimension wrote:
| You eventually get used to either, I suppose.
| dheera wrote:
| It's weird to me that big tech hasn't thought about offering a
| financial reward with C&D's.
|
| "We will pay you $10000 if you C&D" seems like pennies to them,
| much less than the cost of legal fees, a nice amount of cash
| for a personal project that hasn't monetized yet.
|
| Or a job
|
| "We will give you a job offer to work on X if you C&D your own
| work on X"
|
| also seems like a great strategy. If someone has already
| demonstrated enough talent to be a threat to your company, it
| seems like it would make full sense to try to hire them.
| bluefirebrand wrote:
| > Or a job. "We will give you a job offer to work on X if you
| C&D your own work on X
|
| I'm honestly surprised this doesn't happen more in the gaming
| industry with companies buying big name mods and hiring the
| mod writers.
|
| I know a lot of mod writers would probably be opposed because
| they actually just want to make free stuff, but some would
| probably launch careers off of it.
| ntqvm wrote:
| This exact situation happened with Roblox - they shut down
| then hired the biggest cheat developers for their game.
| Kinda funny.
| bluefirebrand wrote:
| Yeah, there are examples of it happening here and there.
| That's part of why I'm surprised it doesn't happen more.
| It seems like an easy avenue to hire talented and
| passionate people who want to work on your thing.
| jdsully wrote:
| The premise of this article is that you somehow have to respond
| to it which is nuts. If the letter is ridiculous (e.g. citing
| terms of service you did not sign) then you're better off to
| ignore it and not waste money on legal fees. Also everyone who
| suggests getting a lawyer has probably not had to hire one in the
| past. With very few exceptions they will tell you it "depends"
| and maybe give you a few legal terms you can google. If you are
| lucky a good lawyer will give you their opinion on the merits of
| the letter but many will be so guarded it's not useful.
|
| A C&D costs the sender almost nothing and is not the same as
| actually being sued. Very rarely are they serious enough to
| actually file something. If that does happen you _should_ get a
| lawyer at that point, but doing it before is just a waste of
| money.
| encomiast wrote:
| Not sure we read the same article. The first point under
| "Decide how to respond" is "1. Ignore" (although it suggests
| this is risky if ignore includes continuing what lead to the
| C&D)
| jdsully wrote:
| #1 is to "pause immediately". Much further down in the
| article they get to the ignore option.
| hodgesrm wrote:
| If you have not received a C&D before then the reason to
| consult with an attorney is to evaluate the risk. A lot of
| legal trouble arises from assuming you understand something
| when you actually don't. (Ask me how I know.)
| phendrenad2 wrote:
| How do you know?
| hodgesrm wrote:
| Signed a legal document in support of an open source
| initiative against patents that had a section that was
| confusing and hard to understand. I remember thinking it
| was probably no big deal and anyway the document was for a
| good cause.
|
| A couple years later that section had legal consequences
| almost derailed a major transaction involving our company.
| We could have avoided the whole thing by checking with our
| lawyer first. Moral of the story: never sign any legal
| document you don't understand.
| baobabKoodaa wrote:
| > If you have not received a C&D before then the reason to
| consult with an attorney is to evaluate the risk.
|
| The poster you are responding to just explained that most
| lawyers are too guarded to offer a useful evaluation of the
| risk, thus rendering their advice useless or low value.
| hodgesrm wrote:
| That is a bad reason not to consult with a lawyer. Hire a
| good one who knows the business you are in.
| baobabKoodaa wrote:
| And how exactly is a normal person going to evaluate
| which lawyer is a "good one" and which is not?
| phpisthebest wrote:
| >>It matters if you have money, time, and willpower to go to
| court.
|
| This is why we need some version of Loser Pays law... Especially
| when there is a huge resource imbalance like a FB suing a lone
| dev.
| nico wrote:
| Very good post, also kind of depressing how big companies can
| easily squash the little guys
|
| > It doesn't matter if you're right. It matters if you have
| money, time, and willpower to go to court
|
| There are some exceptions to this, but for probably 99% of cases,
| this is true
|
| I've personally been on the receiving end of a litigious
| situation, facing a very wealthy individual. It did not go well
| for me, and had to swallow my pride/ego. This last bit might be
| the hardest thing to do
|
| It is one thing to rationally know that the world is not fair.
| But when it happens to you, oh man, it's not easy at all to take
| it
| RajT88 wrote:
| This is why shady tow companies persist. They have more
| resources than their victims, so it's low risk to behave in
| super shady ways. i.e. towing cars which they can't legally be
| towing. Happens all the time.
| smdyc1 wrote:
| We (and our new clients) constantly get frivolous cease and
| desist notices from a particularly butthurt competitor whenever
| they lose one of their customers to us. They have a habit of
| shutting off customer access to their systems and ignoring any
| requests from customers (who are still paying their bills) for
| their data.
| User23 wrote:
| > *Apparently there are some legal systems, particularly in
| Europe, where the costs of taking Big Tech to court are lower.
| You'd have to ask your lawyer about that. The time and willpower
| aspects may be similar though.
|
| I'm not a lawyer, let alone a European lawyer, but I've heard
| that the drain-their-bankroll-with-spurious-motions technique
| that's beloved by shithead corporations and their attorneys when
| they have no case isn't practicable in most European
| jurisdictions. This is because even at the motion filing level,
| loser pays. So drowning you in garbage motions just gives your
| lawyer an easy payday.
|
| Odds of the US adopting that system?
| tzs wrote:
| > Odds of the US adopting that system?
|
| In general, not without a major change in the US attitude
| toward how businesses should be regulated and how individual
| rights protected to be more like Europe. I'll elaborate in a
| bit.
|
| In specific areas of law the prevailing party can win attorney
| fees, but offhand I can't recall any areas where it is
| mandatory. It's up to the court to decide. Whether that is easy
| or hard depends on the area of law.
|
| For example in patent law the statue says attorney fees can be
| awarded in exceptional cases, whereas in copyright law the
| statute just says it is at the discretion of the court.
|
| The problem with making loser pays apply in general in US civil
| suits is that the US often relies on civil suits brought by
| individuals to enforce rights and regulations that in Europe
| would be enforced by a government agency.
|
| Loser pays could discourage individuals from bringing such
| suits against larger more wealthy entities because a case is
| almost never completely open and shut.
| ls612 wrote:
| Loser pays has a different trade off. If you have a case which
| is close on the merits (where you may well win but it isn't
| certain) you may want to concede early because you are risk
| averse about paying BigCo's legal fees. It isn't a free lunch.
| It just shifts the pain points to a different class of cases.
| smashah wrote:
| We are well within a Digital Age and we are now digital human
| beings. Adversarial Interop is a fundamental Digital Human Right.
|
| Louis has been on the frontlines of this unjustly lonely battle
| against big evil megacorps (META specifically) for the last few
| years.
|
| If any lawyers are here that care about digital rights as coders
| then please reach out to louis because a coalition is needed to
| fight against C&Ds against independent, OSS, interop developers
| and their users.
|
| Thank you Louis for writing this, I wish I saw this last year
| before nuking my OSS project out of an abundance of abject fear
| that this $800bn megacorp could ruin my life for what amounts to
| pocket change. This experience still hurts till this day.
|
| RIP & Long Live Aaron Swartz
| 0xbadcafebee wrote:
| It's sad that most people are less "legally literate" than they
| are "scientifically literate", when the former affects them more
| often throughout life. Schools should teach kids how to not get
| screwed over with the law. Tenants' rights in particular is very
| important and almost nobody I know understands them, or how
| brazenly landlords/management companies will rip you off if you
| let them.
| NegativeK wrote:
| Most people I see talking about their legal literacy are best
| described as cocky and dangerous to themselves and others they
| give advice to. The same behavior shows up with medical
| literacy.
|
| Maybe schooling could help with that.
| anticorporate wrote:
| > Most people I see talking about their legal literacy are
| best described as cocky and dangerous to themselves and
| others they give advice to.
|
| 100%.
|
| I have a side hustle doing etching, engraving, and CNC-type
| things. The forums and groups for this kind of things are
| teeming with people who not just believe, but tell others,
| that copyright and trademark either don't apply to them for
| $reasons or doesn't even exist for things they found for
| "free" on the internet.
| 0xbadcafebee wrote:
| Those people exist at least partly because they haven't
| received education to the contrary. There will always be
| cocky, ignorant, wrong people in the world. But they
| certainly won't get any smarter if we don't teach them.
| rxvium wrote:
| Yes and no. I think it's important to make everyone aware of
| their basic rights, _but_ also make it known that they are NOT
| legal experts by any means, and that it 's a extremely
| complicated field.
|
| There's a reason why it takes several years of education and
| testing to become an attorney.
| codingdave wrote:
| One thing to be aware of is that letters are not guarantees that
| they will follow up or take you to court. Especially if they have
| a weak case - it is just as likely to be a bluff, hoping you'll
| just stop because they are big and you are small.
|
| Ask an attorney to know for sure, but if they have no case and
| are just being bullies, don't cave in.
| denton-scratch wrote:
| > don't cave in
|
| That's dangerous advice, if you have anything to lose, and the
| C&D isn't obviously complete nonsense. Your adversary's lawyer
| may have causes of action that he chooses not to disclose just
| now.
| tobymather123 wrote:
| interesting. I'm curious why they bother going after so many
| small developers. There must be some kind of negative effect
| long-term there on their perception in the tech ecosystem etc.
| Bored in-house lawyers?
| ferbivore wrote:
| Facebook execs have willfully enabled genocide campaigns. It
| hasn't hurt their ability to hire one bit. Why would this?
| nickdothutton wrote:
| Big firms issue C&D letters for all kinds of wild reasons. A
| startup I founded got one because of the colour of our hardware
| bezels. Note the company writing to us was not even a tech
| business, let alone a hardware company.
| kyledrake wrote:
| If anyone has some good tech-knowledgeable attorneys that work
| with individuals or smaller companies this is a great opportunity
| to promote them. It's hard to find people that are specialized in
| this sort of thing on a smaller scale and I've been looking for
| people/firms that can do this.
| advisedwang wrote:
| So many comments here about how C&D don't have teeth and
| suggesting ignoring them. That might generally be the case, but
| the article here specifically talks about losing your account on
| the tech company's service as the main thing they are concerned
| about.
| BonoboIO wrote:
| Do not enter your real name anywhere and you will sleep way
| better.
| imhoguy wrote:
| Or imitate you live in Russia or other shielded country.
| KieranMac wrote:
| As an attorney who has experience responding to Meta's "anti-
| scraping team," I think there might be more opportunities for
| amicable resolutions than you might expect (depending on the
| specifics of what you're doing, of course). Meta is not oblivious
| to the fact that they're under significant social and regulatory
| scrutiny. They sometimes play nice if you're willing to
| accommodate certain considerations.
|
| Either way, my recommendation would be to find an attorney with
| industry-specific expertise to address the norms of your
| industry. C&Ds range from idle shake downs to definite pre-
| cursors to litigation. Without industry-specific knowledge, it's
| hard to know which is which.
| michpoch wrote:
| Would you be willing to share some stories regarding
| particularly FB reacting to someone scraping their data? Are
| they very stingy? Would they bother with someone non-US based?
| KieranMac wrote:
| I can't share client-specific stories because that's
| protected by AC privilege. But I think the recipients of
| these letters sometimes have more potential to negotiate than
| they realize.
| mthoms wrote:
| Is there existing case law around browser extensions that only
| alter the presentation of a web page on the client machine? You
| know, things like adblockers or extensions that alter a
| specific site?
| jksmith wrote:
| My attorney always said:
|
| 1) Good problem to have. 2) If they had something, they wouldn't
| threaten you, they'd just act.
|
| It's the risk/reward ratio. Unless it's worth reacting to, file
| 13 that shit.
| tgsovlerkhgsel wrote:
| If their primary goal was to get you to stop, I'd assume they'd
| send a C&D first too because it's a lot less headache for them
| if that makes the problem go away.
|
| So I wouldn't see a C&D as a guaranteed sign that they aren't
| willing to sue, but the threshold for "want you to stop and are
| willing to sue for it" is much, much, MUCH higher than the
| threshold for "eh, I'll send a C&D and see if this makes it go
| away, if not, not worth it".
| wyldfire wrote:
| > Make sure nothing critical in your life relies on using the
| platform. It shouldn't be your primary means of contacting any
| important people in your life,
|
| I don't do anything that could even be perceived as antagonistic
| towards Facebook. But I imagine it's something I _could_ do. I
| don 't have a Facebook account so I don't care if I get banned.
| But I do use WhatsApp. I could live just fine without it. but
| would/could a ban include a ban from Whatsapp? I guess I naively
| assume they don't know enough from my WhatsApp usage to link it
| to my identity. But of course a phone number is as close unique
| identity as they come.
| quijoteuniv wrote:
| I remember 15 years ago or so someone wrote a pluging for me-
| tunes that was downloading the lyrics of your mp3 by scraping
| internet. It was brillant (now standard in placetify). Afew
| months later he receive a C&D from the fruit people. How sad the
| big tech can get away with this.
| dartharva wrote:
| I used the Unfollow Everything extension when I was a teen, it
| was great. I eventually ended up deleting my FaceBook account
| altogether; our generation (Z) thankfully feels Facebook to be an
| old person thing.
| woodruffw wrote:
| There are sound reasons why this can't be the case, but it _sure
| would be nice_ if anti-SLAPP laws[1] were also able to cover
| these kinds of petty intimidation maneuvers by huge corporations.
|
| (It would probably be impossible to weave a statute that prevents
| this kind of bullying while also enabling legitimate uses of C&D
| letters. So this is entirely fantasy.)
|
| [1]:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_lawsuit_against_publ...
| phendrenad2 wrote:
| There are plenty of laws that only apply to companies over a
| certain size. Maybe force publicly-traded companies to publish
| a list of all C&Ds they have sent. Make it transparent who are
| the biggest bullies. A lack of imagination is no excuse here.
| tgsovlerkhgsel wrote:
| As far as I understand, companies in the US really don't like
| actual litigation due to discovery: They'd be required to provide
| documents relevant to the case if requested. This not only risks
| making embarrassing documents part of the public record, but is
| also incredibly expensive since their lawyers have to review all
| the documents, and it can be a lot - and they generally can't
| recoup those fees.
|
| If they _really_ want you to stop, e.g. because you 're putting
| their core business at risk, they might consider it, of course.
| But they won't do it for random bullshit. They do have infinite
| resources to crush you - but even they don't have enough
| resources to do it to everyone who ignores their C&D.
|
| Also, I would expect the likelihood of getting sued (by a company
| that's acting rationally - small businesses where you've
| personally pissed off the owner can be different) depends on
| whether they can achieve their goal. If for example their goal is
| to keep you from publishing details about a security
| vulnerability and public embarrassment, the motivation to sue you
| is likely to go _down_ once the vulnerability is public and their
| behavior has been reported in the tech press, and continuing to
| press it will just continue to the Streisand effect.
| phendrenad2 wrote:
| Man, fuck Facebook. The one-off C&D sent to anyone who appears to
| be using your trademark I can understand. Sending the guy a bill
| for $30,000? Now that involved human forethought. Something seems
| to be going on over at the Fsckbook legal department and it _isn
| 't good_.
| jimmydroptables wrote:
| Interesting topic and article. I agree with the author, that it's
| useful to read this information and keep it in the back of your
| head in case you ever need it, before you actually find yourself
| in a stressful situation like this.
|
| But one thing I don't understand every time there's a C&D story
| is why leave a paper trail to send the C&D to in the first place
| if doing something in a gray area? If I was creating some piece
| of software that is designed to give the middle finger to the man
| or facebook or whoever and/or benefit the public, I would just
| release the source anonymously on some random forum and it can't
| be stopped. Why create an official github repo with your real
| email and everything just to take credit?
|
| To clarify, I mean cases like youtube vanced or the recent
| valve/nintendo portal mod issue, where its obvious some company
| might not like it, but I don't see why the projects couldn't have
| continued anyway if the authors didn't expose themselves to
| litigation. Or am I being naive about this?
| barbazoo wrote:
| It's like cancer suing chemotherapy for helping people get rid of
| it.
| denton-scratch wrote:
| I used to work for an Indymedia collective; I'd say we received
| half a dozen C&Ds.
|
| [Indymedia was an open news collective, with a strong anarchist-
| socialist leaning]
|
| Our "collective" had no formal membership, and no assets. We were
| all just volunteers who valued the platform and did some work to
| help out. These emails were always addressed to "To Whom It May
| Concern". Pseudonymity was the norm in Indymedia, and I was
| completely ignorant about the IRL identity of most colleagues
| that preferred to be pseudonymous.
|
| They'd usually be complaining about Indymedia reports of the
| activities of some small businessman, often a builder. It would
| often be part of a campaign, i.e. there would be more than one
| article, by different people. So we'd collate the articles, and
| do web-searches; if the complaint appeared to refer to something
| potentially libellous; or involved some crime like inciting
| violence; or violated our posting T&C, like trolling,
| conspiraloon, or agent-provocateur, then we'd hide the article or
| comment; otherwise the site would have been deluged in spam.
| Hidden articles and comments didn't appear in lists. We had no
| one-button method for removing an article completely, we had to
| blank the article in the database. We even published a link to a
| page where you could view all articles and comments; none of
| these C&Ds ever referred to a hidden article.
|
| We never replied to any of these C&Ds. We (or I) never hid an
| article or comment as the result of reading a C&D; I never
| thought the C&D had any merit. We took the "Ignore" route, and
| never suffered any adverse consequences; not even follow-ups.
|
| So I don't share the author's opinion that you should _never_
| adopt the Ignore route. Perhaps we got lucky, but I 'd have taken
| these messages more seriously if they had named me.
|
| FTR, IANAL.
| primitivesuave wrote:
| I got multiple C&Ds for publishing public information, provided
| directly from the US government as giant CSV files (PPP loan
| data, provided under FOIA), through a web interface that made it
| easy to search loan recipients and analyze distribution of COVID
| relief funds.
|
| Many of the C&Ds came from people who were later indicted for
| defrauding the government, some of them in hilariously inept
| ways.
| strix_varius wrote:
| This sounds like interesting research - could you share a link
| to your results?
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2024-01-30 23:00 UTC)