Dell overreacts to Consumerist post – then apologizes
A few days ago a former Dell sales manager published on Consumerist a piece entitled 22 Confessions Of A Former Dell Sales Manager. That lead to letter from Dell legal counsel demanding that the post be removed. That just resulted in more attention, and Dell has since issued an apology.
This is a classic example of not thinking through a reaction. Dell puts it well in their reply when they say: instead of trying to control information that was made public, we should have simply corrected anything that was inaccurate. We didn’t do that, and now we’re paying for it.
Frankly, while I can understand why Dell’s first reaction might have been upset to see such a post from a former employee, there was nothing in it that was really harmful.
Its worthwhile to read the intitial post, the Dell lawyer’s letter, the reply by the Consumerist (I found that amusing), and the Dell response. Those are all available on the Consumerist site, and from a Techdirt post.
And while I normally agree with Techdirt, I don’t agree with their ongoing thought that such things happen when lawyers make business decisions. I agree that lawyers need to rethink reactions to things that are posted on the Web and advise accordingly, but lawyers don’t fire off these letters on their own. A business person instructs them to send such letters.
