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April 4, 2004
Amway has contacted Scott Larsen regarding The Blakey Report
By QBlog in
It has come to my attention that Amway attorney Richard E. Griffin has demanded that Scott Larsen (of AmQuix.info) remove The Blakey Report (pdf) from his servers. Like Dave Touretzky, Larsen was told that publishing the report is in violation of a 1998 protective order. As of this writing, the report is still available on Larsen's servers. We'll see what develops.
What is especially curious to me as a Web professional is Amway's belief that The Blakey Report, or anything for that matter, can be effectively removed from the Web. On the Web, information wants to be shared. That's its nature. Once the metaphorical genie has been let out of the bottle, it can't be returned. Just ask Jon Johansen about DeCSS or Monica Lewinsky about the Drudge Report or Scientologists about Operation Clambake. There are numerous examples of corporations and governments unsuccessfully attempting to remove specific information from the Web. It's just inconceivable to me that in this era of peer-to-peer networks, email, FTP and literally millions of Web servers across the globe, Amway truly believes its efforts to wipe The Blakey Report from the Web will succeed.
If Amway hired me as the head of their PR department I'd advise them to ditch their efforts to remove The Blakey Report from the Web and craft a credible response. Surely there are Amway supporters equal to Blakey's stature that disagree with his assessment of their business. Get those folks to respond to Blakey's opinions by speaking directly to the people. That's good strategy because it publicly recognizes the report and deals directly with its contents instead of the somewhat suspicious efforts to remove it from the Web. Removing it only begs the question, "What is in that report that Amway doesn't want me to know?" But, as we all know, Amway's not asking for my advice on this matter. Oh well, this wouldn't be the first time my brilliance has been ignored. ;o)