Greg -

We have removed the abundance of keywords and resubmitted our site to Google. Thank you for bringing that to our attention…. Oh wait, you didn’t. Greg, it’s funny that you talk about us “going to a higher power” and “harassment.” Did MyEvents have every Drupal site yanked out of Google for trademark infringement? No, we tried to handle it like adults. You had MyEvents pulled for keywords out of pure spite, which was your right, but now you (and effectively the Drupal community) have harmed our small company. From your apology, I believe you understand what you did was wrong, but you did harm us.

Furthermore, we’re getting emails from your fans like this:

———————— BEGIN EMAIL ————————-
FROM: “Timothy Hellum” XXXXXXX@fastmail.ca
DATE: Sat, 2 Sep 2006 21:25:13 +0000 (UTC)
TO: xxxx@myevent.com
SUBJECT: I’m Interested…

 .. in companies that aren't KEYWORD STUFFING ASSHOLES!  What a bunch of complete and utter asholes you people are.  I hope people use myevents and MYEVENTS and MyEvents *all* over the  place and totally scam you in return.

Keyword stuffing your website is for amateurs and idiots. You appear to be both.
———————— END EMAIL ———————————

You want to talk about harassment?

Greg, if you have any compassion, I’d really appreciate it if you could amend your initial message about “trademarks and keyword stuffing” and put a slightly positive spin on it, letting folks know that we’re not complete assholes, that we owned up to our mistake (as Drupal did with theirs), and that we immediately remedied the situation once it was brought to our attention by ourselves. We’re just out to protect our brand (see my previous post about why I think you’re way off base when you say that Trademarks are only for people who know about you - Trademarks are EXACTLY about protecting the little guy). I could get into “when were you made the preeminent authority on what threshold makes a brand a legitimate brand?,” but no.

Greg and all, it is quite unfortunate that the Internet has become a place where rather than trying to work out problems with individuals, you attempt to undermine their existence.

An analogy would be this:
Say you have a 10 year old car, not a great car, but your car that is reliable and you’re proud of it. Now say that I accidentally crash into your car (sort of how Drupal crashed into MyEvents). You have 3 choices. You can:
1) Grab your neck, cry “whiplash” and hire an attorney to sue me (unfortunately what society has often come to these days).
2) Drive away with your dinged fender and chalk it up to bad luck.
3) You can say to me (the driver who caused the accident), “you made a mistake, how are you going to fix this problem that you’ve caused.”

We chose to fix our issues with Drupal with #3, like adults. A forth alternative would be for me (after crashing into your car) to search your car for any defect and then report you to the department of motor vehicles, even though I hit you (Greg’s approach).

If any good comes from this incident, I’d hope that you and all reading this realize that while spiteful actions may give you 15 seconds of fame on your message board, they can have real life consequences. Greg, you didn’t have the full story before you acted. Even in your retort, you make vast assumptions such as “I recommend you not focus on protecting your brand” and “trademarks are only useful when people know about them.”
In my analogy above, Greg, would you have chosen #2, to walk away from damages your car suffered? Perhaps they should call you Ghandi, not Greg.

The actions MyEvents took towards Drupal and others were in accordance with #3 in my example above - trying to work out problems with adults like adults. Yes, some people didn’t listen, and we needed to send them additional, less friendly messages (what you claim to be “harassment”). Two people (probably the ones you’re referring to) acted less like adults and more like insolent children, sending us “armchair lawyer” emails stating, “You cannot trademark MyEvents - go away” (this being a much kinder, gentler version of what they actually said). Obviously in those instances, more emails were necessary (or “harassment” as you put it).

Finally Greg, you claim people were consulting attorneys and spending their time and money. First of all, Greg, that is there right. Personally, I would simply have put the space in between the My and Events – a much less costly endeavor. Assuming they really did chat with an attorney, obviously their attorney came back and said, “MyEvents is trademarked for Internet Calendaring, and you’re offering an internet calendar called MyEvents - so yes, you’re infringing.” The fact that they contacted an attorney is not our fault – you make it sound like it is.

Thanks all for reading – again guys, we’re just trying to salvage our brand that for the last 10 years, until the rise in Drupal popularity, was insulated from marketplace confusion. We’re not a Goliath coming after a small Drupal population. If anything, we’re the underdog now that Drupal has gained such momentum. If you can help by promoting the Drupal patch, you’d be helping to rectify the harm caused from the actions carried out on this message board.