Concern

So, I got a trademark takedown notice over the Interwebs this week. It was from the Foley Hoag LLP attorneys at law, on the behalf of WANT AD Publications, Inc.

They took issue with me hosting a page, on my personal website, that used the phrase “Want Advertiser.” The page (which I did remove, so you have no frame of reference, sorry) was a half-jokey list of items that I had for sale, or items that I was looking to buy. A personal classified sort of thing.

I haven’t updated that page in years. I thought it was neat at the time to put a little list on my personal website of things that I was selling or wanted to buy, but yeah, I don’t buy or sell anything that often, and if I do, there are better places for that kind of thing. So the page has been there, for ages, static and (for the most part) un-viewed. Then lawyers come around in their lawyery way, and ruffle feathers about taking it down.

It’s not really worth fighting for, so I went ahead and took the page down. Mostly I’m bemused and astounded by this, that these people would go to such an effort for a web page. Not just any web page, not some revenue-generating web site, not even anything that had advertisements. A single, short web page, on a personal web site, that hasn’t been updated in years. They spend money and time fighting that.

I’m not sure if it’s kosher for me to post the PDF they sent. They slap on “CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION” notices on emails they send out, but I never agreed to receive confidential information. So, can I post the content of their nastygram, here in public?

Yeah, I’m not afraid:

From:	Weinstein, Charles <CEW@foleyhoag.com>
Subject:	WANT AD Publications Inc./Metastatic.org–Infringement of Registered Trademark THE WANT ADVERTISER
Date:	August 16, 2007 07:33:33 AM PDT
To:	Casey Marshall
CC:	Smith, Jim <JAS@foleyhoag.com>
	1 attachment, 113.0 KB Casey S. Marshall.pdf (113.0KB)

Please see the attached PDF file.

Charles E Weinstein, Esq.
Foley Hoag LLP
Seaport World Trade Center West
155 Seaport Boulevard
Boston MA 02210
617.832.1238 (phone)
617.832.7000 (fax)
cweinste@foleyhoag.com

<<Casey S. Marshall.pdf>>

United States Treasury Regulations require us to disclose the following: Any tax advice included in this document and its attachments was not intended or written to be used, and it cannot be used, for the purpose of avoiding penalties under the Internal Revenue Code.

This email message and any attachments are confidential and may be privileged. If you are not the intended recipient, please notify Foley Hoag LLP immediately — by replying to this message or by sending an email to postmaster@foleyhoag.com — and destroy all copies of this message and any attachments without reading or disclosing their contents. Thank you.

For more information about Foley Hoag LLP, please visit us at www.foleyhoag.com.

I bought a new iMac, and it arrived today.

It’s a 24-inch display. It is gigantic, beautiful, fast, and it kernel panicked once.

I’m hoping that that last bit was just a fluke, we’ll see.

Forgive this, it’s stupid, but I’m in need of advice:

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Quite a while ago I whined about my station in life, and while many bits of that post are still true enough today, I took one recommendation to heart (to lose weight), and started doing it in earnest.

It worked extremely well.

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So, I signed up with my DSL service provider to increase the up/down speed of my DSL link at home. 3 times the speed, 2.5 times the price.

But, so, yeah, instead of getting faster Internet access, some snafu has left me with no Internet access. Nice, that. So if I seem to ignore you, uh, that’s why.

Also, nobody in my neighborhood has their WiFi running without a password any more! From my apartment, I can see eleven access points, and all of them have passwords enabled.

Update: all is right with the world. They just changed my IP address, and didn’t tell me about it. I have no excuse for being misinformed about the goings on of the Internets.