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."

Re:Minor point

Pardon me for replying to you, but I want this to be near the top, where everyone, especially ROBERT NOVAK, head meatball in charge.

Want to really make him hurt? Just point out that his store really is horrible. Service? Sucks. Price? Sucks! There are much better stores that have better stock, lower prices, and excellent customer service. Two such examples are:

That Pet Place [thatpetplace.com]

Drs. Foster & Smith [drsfostersmith.com]

(Note: I am not affiliated in ANY way with either of those stores mentioned. They had nothing to do with being written here. I put them here. They're not the droids you're looking for. I AM. All of the above is my very own personal opinion, and I stand by it.)

So come get me, big boy! Sue my frigging ass off for enjoying my first ammendment rights. I even live in New York. And I'm bored. It costs me just as much nothing to be sued by you as it does for you to sue me. Let's just frigging GO. =)

Sorry.

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

Re:Sorry.

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:One Word...

Sounds like an interesting Half-Life mod..

OMG, THIS d00d IS WALLHAX0R1NG!!!!

Re:His site hasn't been slashdotted yet!

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!

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...

Re:His site hasn't been slashdotted yet!

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

Re:His site hasn't been slashdotted yet!

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:Just make him look like a dumbass

I don't think he cares whether he looks like a fool or not. Remember that "Seinfeld" episode where George gets a job by pretending that he was disabled, and then after he's found out, continues showing up at the job because his employers are contractually bound to keep him on for a full year? His boss hates George and makes his life miserable, his coworkers all tell him to drop dead in the hallways, but George doesn't care--his paycheck is worth more to him than his dignity or his reputation, and as long as he gets it, George thinks that he's won.

Same with his fellow Novak, I guess. He must know that the lawsuits are frivolous and that his name is mud among everyone who's ever heard of him. No matter--he keeps suing and keeps collecting from people who can't afford a protracted legal action, and so by his lights, he's won.

hyacinthus.

the slashdot army...

Which troops would he rally? Do you think that a platoon of geeks bearing down on Novak's mansion would change things?

No, but a quarter million geeks pounding away at his website address every 12 hours (when the story gets inadvertantly re-posted) can keep his bandwidth maxed out without letting any "customers" through.

Plus, slashdot viewers are not what most people would consider "shy" in the online world, so if given a rousing "Sons of Scotland" speech from Mr. Taco, it's probable that you'd soon have millions of messageboard posts and emails to friends and quick-n-dirty websites thrown up on stupid/clever pun-ful domain names. We could bleed Novak dry just on the cost of all the paper he'd need to file suit against all these individuals, and their hosting companies, and the search engines who list them, and the PC manufacturers who sold them the computers they commited the 'harassment' from, and their lawyers, and ... their pets, for not frequenting his establishment...

what is right

Usually it is the large corporation trying to silence little people.

Novak is a pathetic moron. If he comes after me, I will drop him like a bad habit. He already read the mention of him on my site.

Part of the problem is that the people did settle instead of filing a motion to dismiss or a summary judgment motion. I can understand why they would settle for a nuisance amount. If a motion for summary judgment had been done, the case would have been kicked.

bad page! bad page!!

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*

Re:bad page! bad page!!

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

Be careful what you say about Mr. Novak

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.

Sued for A'Slashdottin ?

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

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

Re:Sued for A'Slashdottin ?

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... :)

Thanks for reminding me!

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.

Re:Be careful what you say about Mr. Novak

As much as I despise what Mr. Novak did with the whole fish complaint thing, a quick read of the ACTUAL LAWSUIT [216.168.47.67] shows that this new suit has NOTHING to do with free speech or negative comments from unhappy customers. This is a completely new and UNRELATED lawsuit, that just happens to be from the same guy. Petswarehouse.Com is suing Google, and other search engines and petstores because they are using the Petswarehouse.com trademark to steal customers. Google is included in the suit because they are allowing paid placement customers (competing petstores) to use the PetsWarehouse.Com trademark as a keyword to display their ads. The competing petsores themselves are alleged to have put the petswarehouse.com trademark inside their meta-tags to attract customers. The suit also alleges that PetsWarehouse complained about the trademark infringement to Google, but that Google refused to abide by their own policy and remove the infringing material.

I hate to say it, but Mr. Novak may actually have a valid trademark suit here!

dole budgers/pensioners should slander him

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:Be careful what you say about Mr. Novak

> 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.

This is good news.

Now he's suing people that can actually afford to fight back. I hope he gets the pants beaten off of him by Google's lawyers.

-- Dr. Eldarion --

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

I'm all googled-out right now.

There was a guy who posting anti-VW comments on a automotive enthusiast message board...and the judge threw it out because it was merely opinion and not fact.

Link?

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

What does that have to do with this?

Keep in mind that usually these lawsuits are not intended to attempt to actually be won in a court of law, they are intended to run the defendant out of resources until they are forced to accept to the terms of the plaintiff just to get themselves out of court. It's becoming more and more common, and is actually a fairly effective way to skirt around the First Amendment, unfortunately.

Several states are now passing laws to make such suits illegal, but for the time being, watch what you say online. And be vague enough so as not to actually be accusing anyone of doing anything :) !

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

Several states are now passing laws to make such suits illegal, but for the time being, watch what you say online.

The kinds of suits are called SLAPPs. Many states are attempting to pass anti-SLAPP [thefirstamendment.org] laws, notably California [casp.net]

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

The dealer in question is Jim Ellis Volkswagon in Atlanta, GA. Until recently Jim Ellis dealerships had a monopoly on VW and Audi sales in the Atlanta area. The post that started it all can be found here [vwvortex.com].

The case got so much attention all over the world that the dealership dropped the case - it was never tried in court (except the court of public opinion, which was pretty damning). Whether or not the dealership had a leg to stand on is questionable - there may have been slander in the thread, but the original poster may not have been the one to do it.

Mr. Novak has probably bitten off more than he can chew, at least if Google actually goes to court and doesn't just yank the references like they did with Scientology and Operation Clambake [xenu.net].

I've never dealt with Mr. Novak's business, and I know I certainly would not in the future given his legal tactics. I have dealt with Jim Ellis though, and will not in the future because of my experiences with them.

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

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

Is SlashDot on this list?

If not, maybe next week they will be

Nothing is more idiotic than a legal system that allows one person to abridge the security and personal freedom of another, but exercising their own right to continually sue or press frivolous charges against individuals/organizations that cross their path.

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. I think I read earlier that there are some laws regarding individuals that are sue happy, why not make it federal (and get the Canadian government to apply one as well, although Canada seems less lawsuit-crazy than the US).

Lawyers: Who do you want to sue today? - phorm

Re:Is SlashDot on this list?

IWALS (I was a Law student), but don't take this as professional advice.

It certainly is that way here in Europe: the side that loses the case usually has to pay both sides' legal fees (at the judge discretion).

But not in the USA. Well, maybe it is in some states, but generally every side has to pay its own legal fees.

Maybe that's the reason we have so few of those plainly stupid suits here, as if you sue someone you have to be really sure of it or face paying up your lawyer and theirs.

Some statistics I read a while ago (might have changed): While in the USA 80% of the suits are between private parties, in Europe only 20% are. The rest are between the State and the defendant, that is, criminal suits.

Until I got to this fundamental difference, I didn't understand why lawyers were so important in the USA.