March 2003 website review: Cognitive disonance
As someone with a lifetime's experience of squeezing out that last drop of response from myriad direct marketing campaigns, Roger Millington knows a good website when he sees one.
What can you do to let the world know if you are particularly happy or unhappy with a recent purchase? Answer: Try the Internet.
Amazon encourages you to write your comments on the books you have read – a facility abused by authors who submit glowing pseudonymous reviews of their own literary works.
CNET invites you to submit your assessments of software you have used. Indeed, it's a sensible idea always to check CNET before spending money; I was on the point of ordering some audio software this afternoon when I discovered that 59% of existing users have given my intended purchase the thumbs-down! You can find CNET's helpful user-reviews at: http://swreviews.netscape.com/software/0,10000,0-8888,00.html
Before buying software, see what others say at CNET
If you're really unhappy about something, you can e-mail everyone you can think of. That's what Simon Kirby did after watching his pension fund dwindle. In the first two years, his fund managers took 65% of his contributions in fees. The disgruntled Simon assembled a PowerPoint presentation of his experience – featuring recordings of telephone conversations with Ray, the company's financial adviser – and e-mailed it to all and sundry. Soon his presentation was circulating around the Treasury and the Financial Services Authority. Then The Guardian picked up the story. You can download Simon's presentation at his website: www.badpension.com.
Ray tries to explain why Simon's fund is doing so badly
The Internet provides a handy forum for anyone who wishes to vent frustration at shoddy merchandise or poor service. Websites where customers gain their revenge are known as "suck sites" – the name coming from the popularity of such sites as BallySucks.com. That particular American site contained complaints about Bally Total Fitness Health Clubs, but like so many suck sites, it has vanished from the Internet.
Suck sites disappear after legal action or after the offended companies have exerted pressure on the sites' service providers. Others cease if they succeed in their objectives; Pepsibloodbath.com closed down voluntarily after Pepsi-Cola stopped advertising at bullfights. But some that have survived are at:
http://www.noamazon.com/
http://www.aolsucks.org/
http://www.untied.com/
Untied.com has United Airlines as its target and has been in existence since April 1997. As an example of good website design – clear layout, helpful navigation, solid editorial content – it certainly justifies its choice here as Website of the Month. On those three criteria it knocks the living daylights out of most expensively produced airline sites! A happy recent touch is a photograph sent in by United's employees: it shows an aircraft bearing the title UNTIED AIRLINES after a botched paint job.
Afraid of flying? Then avoid Untied.com
If you're thinking of starting a site that pokes fun at an organisation that has upset you, be aware of the legal pitfalls. Wired News has set out some useful guidelines in an article entitled Legal Tips For Your 'Sucks' Site. You can find it at: http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,38056,00.html.
On the other hand, what do you do if you are an organisation that has been lampooned by such a site?
Well, you can try and get the site removed. But the consequences can be worse than you plan. Last December a fake website, Dow-Chemical.com, issued a press release explaining the "real" reasons why Dow couldn't take responsibility for the Bhopal catastrophe: "Our prime responsibilities are to the people who own Dow shares, and to the industry as a whole … We cannot do anything for the people of Bhopal."
Dow immediately sent a legal threat to the fake site's Internet service provider, Verio, prompting Verio to close the site and shutting down hundreds of unrelated sites and bulletin boards in the process. The fake site quickly resurfaced in Australia.
Dow then used a little-known domain-name rule to take possession of the Dow-Chemical.com domain name. This backfired when the story was picked up by newspapers around the world. Meanwhile sympathetic activists responded by cloning the site at many locations, including Dowethics.com, DowIndia.com and, Mad-Dow-Disease.com.
Alternatively, if you are, for example, Bloggs Ltd, and wish to prevent the appearance of BloggsSucks.com, you might be advised to register the sucks variant of your domain name.
That is, if someone hasn't already done so. It could be Dan Parisi, the man who runs the porn site Whitehouse.com. He owns seven hundred domain names that include the word 'suck', including Microsoftsucks.com. In such cases, dispute resolution panels usually follow trademark laws and side with the original owner of the name. Guinness has won at least ten disputes over such domain names as Guinness-really-really-sucks.com. However, Parisi has recently won disputes with the aerospace company Lockheed-Martin and with the financial news service Bloomberg and has been awarded the rights to Lockheedsucks.com and Michaelbloombergsucks.com.
An American landmark legal ruling in February 2003 provides further discouraging news for companies sucked into a sucks squabble. Henry Mishkoff, a web developer, has had a long-running battle with a company called Taubman, the owners of a shopping mall. After he was taken to court by Taubman, the court held that "We find that Miskoff's use of Taubman's mark in the domain name Taubmansucks.com is purely an exhibition of Free Speech … And although economic damage might be an intended effect of Mishkoff's expression, the First Amendment protects critical commentary when there is no confusion as to source, even when it involves the criticism of a business … Mishkoff is free to shout 'Taubman Sucks!' from the rooftops ... Essentially, this is what he has done in his domain name. The rooftops of our past have evolved into the Internet domain names of our present. We find that the domain name is a type of public expression, no different in scope than a billboard or a pulpit, and Mishkoff has a First Amendment right to express his opinion about Taubman."
The full details, with associated links, appear at: http://www.chillingeffects.org/domain/weather.cgi?WeatherID=320.
Try to get the sucks site removed by the service provider or take legal action? The good news is that there's a third way to stop your company's good name being ridiculed by a suck site. Give no-one a reason to dislike you. It's called Customer Care.
Contributed by Roger Millington
Neither Roger Millington nor the IDM receives any commission from, or has any commercial interest in, the site featured on this page. We simply feel that it demonstrates different aspects of best practice to which all web designers and web masters can aspire.
