Google sued as PetsWarehouse Lawsuit Continues.

Ikari Gendou writes "In April, Slashdot reported that Robert Novak, owner of Internet pet store Pets Warehouse filed a $15,000,000US lawsuit against several individuals who made comments about his company's poor service on an Internet mailing list. Also named in it and in the suit that followed were the owner of the mailing list, the owners of several informational sites about the lawsuit, the owners of other forums where the lawsuit was discussed, the attorney for the defense, and several sites that merely ran banner ads promoting the defense fund set up for the lawsuit. Some defendents settled out of fear, and were forced to pay cash, transfer their personal domain names to Novak, or even run banner ads for Petswarehouse on their websites. Now, the attorney for the defense has announced that in round three of the lawsuit, Google has been sued, as well as several other sites that have carried news about the lawsuit, such as search engine Judge-For-Yourself.com and pet stores DoctorDog.com and FerretStore.com. Robert Novak is representing himself in this lawsuit, and thus it is effectively costing him nothing to persue this campaign of harassment. He's already gotten several thousand dollars from settlements and cost the defendents considerably more than that in legal fees. More details should be posted soon here, including court documents that tell why Google was added to the suit."

WTF?

[Knightfall]

Hey, somebody, sometime, somewhere, said something I think that just maybe might have been true but I think that I maybe didn't like it. F^CK IT, I'm suing everybody.

Just make him look like a dumbass

[Anonymous Coward]

The more people he sues, the bigger a joke he'll become in the courts. Next, I hope he sues God for allowing these other humans to even exist on Earth.

Careful

[xagon7]

Be careful.. .or they'll wind up suing /.

Awww......forget it......fuck em.

Re:WTF?

[sporty]

Just sue your slashdot "freaks". http://yro.slashdot.org/~Knightfall/freaks :)

/. watch out!

[PhilipMatarese]

Now that information about this has been posted here, this guy is probably going to start suing slashdot also.

bad page! bad page!!

[Allaria]

The blinking links alone tell me that he's a complete idiot.

I bet he was teased in high school and wants to get back at all the bullies.

*sigh*

Be careful what you say about Mr. Novak

[Infonaut]

Remember, he's in the business of suing people, so be sure not to accuse the no-good, rat-bastard, slimy, underhanded, weaseling, gutless scumbag of doing anything improper.

Re:Careful

[Nutcase]

Oh dear god I hope that he sues /.

Somehow I don't think Pets Warehouse has the same clout as Microsoft or Scientology.. I expect Mr. Taco would rally the troops and fuck Mr. Novack up very severely.

Of course, I think google may do the same. ;)

Hey google.. wanna own a shitty pet store? (oh god, is he going to sue /me/ now?)

Re:Careful

[Target Drone]

Be careful.. .or they'll wind up suing /.

Ya be careful people! Just linking to google [google.ca] could get /. into a whole lot of trouble.

my experience with PET WAREHOUSE dot com

[Anonymous Coward]

well i got on there and bought a 50 pound bag of "OL' ROY" dog food for my german shepherd general rommel. well, it took like EIGHT MONTHS for it to even get there. so when it did, general rommel was pretty damn hungry. so I opened up the bag of "OL' ROY" and poured a bowl and gave it to him. he ate it. AND THEN I NOTICED that it was not dog food in there, but rat poison! PET WAREHOUSE is shipping RAT POISON in their pet food! general rommel promptly keeled over and croaked.

i sent a mail to mr. novak and he told me to go eff myself with a shovel. now THAT is what i call customer service. anyway, i've got a new dog now, I called her eva braun, and i will NOT be ordering any more "OL' ROY" from PET WAREHOUSE

your buddy
--gbd

Re:His site hasn't been slashdotted yet!

[British]

Hey, I really would not suggest slashdot linking to Novak's website. As you know, the "slashdot effect" will bring his site to a crawl, losing potential customers. He'll also have a hefty bandwidth bill from his ISP.

So, whatever you do, try not to visit his website. Don't hit Shift-reload over and over again. Don't ask all your friends to visit it and hit shift-reload over and over again. :)

Re:His site hasn't been slashdotted yet!

[wirelessbuzzers]

So, in other words, you are suggesting that we DDoS his site because he is an asshole? Great idea! We should do that more often! We can set up a Slashdot section where you post stuff about people you don't like, and we slashdot their servers! Vigilante justice at its finest!

With apologies to SomethingAwful

[LordYUK]

"Dear judge-

Some mean person made very nasty remarks about my crappy online store. Since we now live in a world where every single whining crybaby threatens to sue somebody over the most trivial of things, I feel I want to sue a person who made some comments on their website. Sure, my knowledge of the legal system is little to none, but I really want to sue these guys because they are so mean! I have obviously never done any research on libel, or I would've learned the following information:

Ideas and opinions, whether true of false, cannot constitutionally be subject to libel claims.

However, my lawyer, who also works the night shift at the local Dairy Queen, says I can sue for MILLIONS of dollars! I tend to believe him, because I once saw him wear an expensive suit and I think that makes him smart.

Sincerely,

Mr Novak"

Re:Does anyone have a link to the story about...

[MyHair]

I'm all googled-out right now.

There was a guy who posting anti-VW comments on a automotive enthusiast message board...

I don't care whether you're "googled-out" or not, mister! You better get out there and find that ad before Google is nothing more than a link to Pets Warehouse!

Re:If he's suing news sites...

[krray]

Let's call and ask him. 800-991-3299

Sorry.

[DAldredge]

You can't. I have a pending patent on the underlying method used is "suing everybody"

Sued for A'Slashdottin ?

[superid]

PetsWarehouse [petswarehouse.com] is currently crawling, as expected. Has anyone ever sued for being slashdotted?

"slashdottin my site? thats a paddle'in" (jasper)

Re:Is SlashDot on this list?

[AntiNorm]

We NEED a law to deal with idiotic lawsuits. That is to say, one that carries penalties for those use lawsuits as a continual source of revenue.

The RIAA would not like that.

Pets Warehouse

[N8F8]

Wonderfull name. Brings to mind a large building stuffed with pets from top to bottom. Hi-Lo's and Forklifts shuffling boxes of animals about. Over in the far rear corner is the "Scratch and Dent" bin full of great bargains.

New Google feature!

[Alizarin Erythrosin]

New to Google! It's Google Pet Warehouse! Now you can search and purchase all your pet needs right from your favorite search engine!

Want to know how we did it? Sure, we'll tell you! Some moron sued us and we won! We got his pet store and now it makes us a mint!

Re:bad page! bad page!!

[Raskolnk]

Mr. Novak,

This letter is to inform you of a class action lawsuit filed against Pets Warehouse ("the Company") on behalf of the rest of the world ("Everybody").

Everybody asserts that the Company has caused irreversible harm and mental anguish by the use of excessive blink tags and animated gifs on the Company's website. Everybody hereby claims the right to compensation for the aforementioned ailments caused by the Company's lack of taste.

Regards,
Everybody

Re:Be careful what you say about Mr. Novak

[SquadBoy]

I would like to add that in my opnion Novak and his pet store both could suck the chrome off a trailer hitch. That from what I have heard he is the devil incarnate and that he SUCKS SUCKS SUCKS.

Can I be addedd now? I have a *very* rich friend who would love to bankroll a fight against this twat.

Don't look now...

[Junior J. Junior III]

But I think we may have discovered what those ????'s in the old

1. Start up a web-based company.

2. ?????
3. Profit!

chain stand for.

Re:One Word...

[verbatim]

Sounds like an interesting Half-Life mod..

OMG, THIS d00d IS WALLHAX0R1NG!!!!

I thought this was why we had judges!

[mekkab]

IANALBMWISTBO, (I am not a lawyer, but my wife is studying to be one: Why does this deserve an acronym? becuase this makes me a VERY dangerous person to have a conversation about: I know just enough legal terms to sound like a pro to the unwashed masses, and to sound like a total moron to the bar association)

But here goes: SUMMARY JUDGEMENT.
You can file suits till the cows come home... BUT WTF?! Summons, subpoena, discovery, WITH NO PRIMA FACIA CASE!

How is he gonna establish jurisdiction?! Suing google?
Whatever-
SECTION 11 of fed civil procedure for FRADULENTLY suing for defamation... and judges can fine people for filing frivilous suits!

Challenge this biatch and get him slapped the fuck down.

dole budgers/pensioners should slander him

[DABANSHEE]

Remember it doesn't pay to sue people on welfare.

1, many don't respond to non-personal mail.

2, half of them pretend their just some flatmate if a stranger such as a bailife or summons server knocks on the door. It becomes habit through years of not paying traffic fines & getting cought on the train without a ticket.

3, they've got bugger all assets, at most maybe a old unregisted car that's either seeing out its days as a shed in the front yard, or, but for a old coat hanger & some bog, is due to see out its days as a shed in the front yard.

4, you can't garnish their incomes.

I know, I've been sued 3 times, & in each case they just gave up.

Re:A Modern Day Morality Tale

[unicron]

The man's family was subsequently awared 10 million dollars. The truck, an 83 GMC half-ton with side saddle gas-tanks, exploded when it hit the man, whose family later sued GMC into bankrutpcy.

Re:His site hasn't been slashdotted yet!

[TomHoward]

Also, make sure you don't run

while true; do wget http://www.petswarehouse.com/; done

Re:His site hasn't been slashdotted yet!

[_xeno_]

And whatever you do, do not accidently type in:

until false; do lynx -source http://oh, I don't know/ > /dev/null ; sleep $(( RANDOM / 1024 + 1 )); done

and then accidently hit enter in a Bash shell...

His message board! Quck before he changes it!!!

[FyRE666]

What a dope:-

login: test
password: test

Feel free to post your "comments" without having to give personal details to register!!!

He wants legal fees?

[Anonymous Coward]

WHEREFORE, Plaintiff demands judgment on Claim One, Claim Two and Claim Three as stated with such other and further relief as the Court deems just and proper, including an award to plaintiff of any and all reasonable attorneys fees, together with the costs and disbursements incurred in connection with this action.

Why exactly should he get "reasonable attorneys fees" when he's representing himself?

I notice on his website...

[Simon Brooke]

that there's currently a user contributed story [infopop.cc] entitled 'Robert Novak ate my baby!'. No, I didn't put it there. But I can't help wondering if he will now have to sue himself, seeing his own site is carrying defamatory remarks about him.

Life is tough when you're a litigious numpty.

Re:Be careful what you say about Mr. Novak

[Tackhead]

> Remember, he's in the business of suing people, so be sure not to accuse the no-good, rat-bastard, slimy, underhanded, weaseling, gutless scumbag of doing anything improper.

Are you implying that you believe Mr. Novak of Petswarehouse.com is a no-good, rat-bastard, slimy, underhanded, weaseling gutless scumbag?

I would advise you to be more cautious in the future. The NGRBSUWGSADL - No-Good Rat Bastard Slimy Underhanded Weaseling Gutless Scumbag Anti-Defamation League - might sue you for libel.

I really hope

[Unknown Poltroon]

No web based busisness ever tries to sue slashdot. I mean, come on, we regularly melt down the servers of people we LIKE. Imagine what a force for doom this buncha angry geeks could be if focused.

My Ferret wants a word with you

[dogfart]

I was discussing this article with my pet ferret, named Ripper. He was very upset at the idea, and wanted to do something about it. After assuring him that ferrets have no standing in civil court and hence cannot be sued, Ripper decided to tell his closest ferret friends, Stinky and Crabby. They in turn got the word out throughout the domesticated ferret community and decided to organize a mass protest, just like human beings used to do during the 1960's. They felt that demonstrating in front of Mr. Novak's home would be the most useful tactic, as it would draw media attention to their cause and let Mr. Novak know what a bad, bad person he is.

Mr. Novak, if I were you I would keep my windows shut and my door locked. If someone knocks at your door do not answer it. Instead you should hire a professional arbitrator and have this skilled individual personally negotiate with the ferrets. Believe me, I know Ripper, Stinky, and Crabby personally. You had better not mess with them!

THE FERRETS UNITED WILL NEVER BE DEFEATED!

Good points, but lets talk about this case...

[mekkab]

Point 1:
You obviously don't understand how this works... :)
you are correct, sir! I thought my clarification (IANALBMWISTBO) meant that heretofor be ignored as a raving moron!

Instead you get paperwork out the wazzo, all billed at 200 dollars an hour. Few companies, every the very rich are willing to even deal with it

How much paper work does it take for a law firm to send a letter saying "Dear Mr Novak. BRING IT THE FUCK ON. Mr. I Sue-you, esquire"
He doesn't have a legal leg to stand on.

lets look at this case- this isn't about SONY who can TOTALLY write off $30mill or that there may be a technical point of merit,
this is about Mr and Mrs domain name holder standing their ground. Novak is suing pro se, so defend yourself pro se. Counter sue pro se.

You won't have to argue in front of the judge, s/he will spend too much time ripping Novak a new one for this frivilous shit!

Yes lawyers are taught that going in front of a judge is the worst thing. But I can't imagine a lawyer saying "wow, this guy is filing all this stuff. I'm scared. Lets' settle!" I see them saying "this is so much bullshit, that I'm gonna try to take my fees directly out of Novak's ass."

Just becuase Novak files papers doesn't mean it will get past prima facia. You sit on your ass, you don't see 1 day in the court room.

/. effect.

[pclminion]

Damn you Slashdotters! I've set my Opera to auto-reload petswarehouse.com every minute, because I'm so interested in seeing Novak's updates on his pending litigation.

But you /. freakos are maxing out his bandwidth, apparently. Don't any of you DARE set auto-reload on that site! That's MY strategy.

This reverse-psychology was brought to you by...

Re:"It's unrealistic"

[tomhudson]

Well, I'm in Canada, so if he wants to sue me, it's going to cost him some $ to serve me, and then I'll file to get the venue moved to Quebec. And I'll request a trial in french. Fuck him up w. translation costs, interpreter costs, etc., even if it ends up in New York.

As they say up here, "mange la merde!"

Re:Sued for A'Slashdottin ?

[Ubergrendle]

Whoops...did I accidentally reconfigure our company's performance testing environment load generators to point outbound to the internet instead of inbound? I hope somebody can sustain 2000 additional user sessions per minute... :)

check out the website

[mo]

In investigating the petswarehouse website I discovered this link [petswarehouse.com] which lists the 20th page of products that have the letter 'a' in the name.

Now, don't everybody hit that up a lot because selecting everything with 'a' from their database, and then jumping to the 20th page is a lot of work and it would cause unneeded strain on their website.

However, it's very useful if you are interested in viewing the depth of the petswarehouse catalog.

Re:Just make him look like a dumbass

[Anonymous Coward]

google is owned by scientoligists?

Stop bullying me!

[spacefrog]

Hey, that's a libelous insult to all of us who were teased in high school, which I think is a majority of the /. population!

Re:His site hasn't been slashdotted yet!

[bleckywelcky]

lol! It is horribly slow, took about 5 minutes to come up for me. Although, I just left it in the back and kept reading other stuff, checking it every minute or two.

Once you are able to get the main page to load though, scroll down a tad to their message board section, it's hilarious:

New Forum Messages--Join us

Welcome Novak is a moron
Welcome www.petwarehouse.com, not www.petsw...
Welcome Robert Novak sues again!!!
Welcome Robert Novak ate my baby!
Just Conversation seeing eye dogs
Dog Behavior What food is Best
Dog Behavior Wellness Food
Marine Saltwater fish adding calcium

Re:One Word...

[Alexis Morissette]

I hope Google wins a countersuit and Novak spends the rest of his natural life paying off his debt by cleaning up after their pigeons [google.com]."

Re:bad page! bad page!!

[good-n-nappy]

What's really funny is that he used cascading style sheets to do it:

A.title:link {
FONT-WEIGHT: normal; FONT-SIZE: 8pt; COLOR: #0000FF; FONT-FAMILY: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; TEXT-DECORATION: blink;
}

PetsWarehouse vs. Scientology?

[phil reed]

Hey, somebody put the Scientology OT3 documents up on the PetsWarehouse message board. Maybe we can get those two lovable organizations to turn on each other.

Re:His site hasn't been slashdotted yet!

[Dalcius]

Don't forget kids! You shouldn't redirect your 5 spa^H^H^Hhotmail accounts to his email address, either! =)

Post your experiences with PetsWarehouse here!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Remember to post as anonymouse coward so he can't sue you!

I'll start...

Last week I had my dog in there for some grooming. When I picked her up she seemed out of sorts and I took her to the vet. Apparently she had been anally raped at PetsWarehouse!

Simpsons reference

[cryptor3]

"Why, you don't have to sue me to get my pants off..."

Thanks for reminding me!

[lorcha]

I wasn't even going to bother clicking /that/ link 'cuz it didn't have anything I wanted to see. But I'm always game to contribute to a good slashdotting if it's a worthy cause.

NOVAK SUCKS COCK

[Anonymous Coward]

Novak, is a actually a SHE BITCH flaming demon from hell. He has had numerous affairs with transexual whores and beats up small dogs in his spare time. He has committed terrorist acts, blowing up buildings, bridges, etc. Mr. Novak is known to feel up small children in his neighborhood, and to stiff contractors for remodeling his spacious mansion. His business is a PIECE OF SHIT, cause he has stolen milllions of dollors from investors.

is that enough slander? I could add more..

WHAT A FUCKHEAD
(none of the above is true, but he definitely is a fuckhead)

From Associated Press:

[levik]

"Bob Novak, most known for his role on CNN's talk show "Crossfire", has announced that he is suing Robert Novak or PertWearhouse.com for copyright infingement, and trading on the good will of Mr. Novak's name.

'The amount of hate mail I get has virtually trippled in the last year,' Mr. Novak said in a statement to the press, 'this has got to stop.'.

The damages in the suit are unspecified yet, but mr Novak's lawyers have stated that one of the remedies they will seek is that Mr. Novak no 2 have his name legally changed to something less confusing. They alledge that he changed his name to "Robert Novak" in 1996, just as Bob Novak was gaining prominence for his appearances on CNN.

'We have received reports that his name before that was "Roberto Perdikakis"' a representative of mr. Novak's said Wednesday morning.

Re:Sorry.

[User 956]

You can't. I have a pending patent on the underlying method used is "suing everybody"

That's too bad, because that infringes on my existing patent of "suing everybody" using the internet.

Re:WTF? If unsure call and ask 1-800-991-3299

[HexRei]

Oops, I think I just called them and cussed them out. Hope it doesn't happen again in... oh, 5 minutes.

Re:Be careful what you say about Mr. Novak

[cmeans]

I did the next best thing...and sent a link to your post to him.

...Just kidding :)

Let's All Phone!

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, I phoned 1-800-991-3299 and asked about the "internet lawsuit". The saleslady claimed she did not have any information right now. Try back tomorrow (Friday).

Gosh, maybe we all should phone tomorrow to check. Heck, phone back today just to make sure.

Inquiry

[dacarr]

Is this guy a Scientologist? Because he is sure acting like one.

Re:His site hasn't been slashdotted yet!

[digitalsushi]

You do realize that this is probably classed as terrorism right?

Nah, waiting $RANDOM seconds between hits leaves us with a non organized attack- what if I use one of those glass birds full of Freon 11 that keep bobbing up and down for the water to click my reload button- are they going to lock me up, the glass bird, or the keyboard for "being in the wrong place at the wrong time?" Cause I can say that I don't know the bird, but all he's got is the right to remain silent.

A Freedom Fighter would do this in bash:

wh1le:;do wget http://some.site>/dev/null;d0ne

if the web server is worth its salt, it'll stop listening to you after like 4 seconds.

ack!

[Polo]

Just reading about this is causing me much Mental Anguish. Can I sue?

Re:Sorry.

[bovinewasteproduct]

You can't. I have a pending patent on the underlying method used is "suing everybody"

Huh? I thought Scientology had that one already?

BWP

Re:Is SlashDot on this list?

[PaganRitual]

"We NEED a law to deal with idiotic lawsuits"

nah, we just need a trapdoor in each court room ...


Judge : Okay Mr Novak, just stand a little to the left ...

*Novak moves over to stand on large off colored square in the floor*

Novak : Okay ... ???

*judges pressed big red button under desk, trapdoor opens underneath Novak*

Novak : AIIIIIEEEEE!!!!

Judge : Case Dismissed ... Smithers, where does that go?

Smithers : I dont know sir.

...

*somewhere in a far off middle eastern country*
DANCE!!!DANCE!!!DANCE!!!DANCE!! ... ALALALALALALALALALA