Tell them to go stuff it. If you got the pic from his personal webpage then what basis does he have to bitch about? Don't want your face shown...don't put it up where it can get picked up by Google....Wanker!!!

If they think we get pissed off when they fuck with a total stranger.. they should see how pissed we get when they fuck with the Consumerist.

You should post pics of this Mark O. Blais goofball.

Mark looks like he's just doing his job. It's not his fault that Lycos is employing a douchebag.

Mike J says: *sniff, sniff* "Daddy, (to stepfather Mark O., DGC for Lycos) these mean people at this website have put a picture of me up and are saying mean things and making fun of my favorite movies *sniff, sniff* and I want you to make them stop - Now, Daddy, NOW!" *sniff, sniff*

Mark O. says "You're such a tool, but your Mom is a hottie... I'll write a letter, that always scares people."

Keep up the good fight, Consumerist!

*Looking for "Donate Here" button for Grassroots legal defense fund for Consumerist / Gawker to cover legal costs of going to bat with asshats @ Lycos.*

Where'd you guys get the photo? Did Mr.Jandreau post his own photo somewhere on the internet? If that's the case he has no reason to bitch, he put it out there, someone else just directed attention to it. As with the personal information, he put it out there so he intended for people to see it.

Don't get me wrong. I like this kind of stuff. But from my Mass Comm legal course, "meanypants" might be considered slander. Seems to me you're OK re-posting the pic, but I would be careful with the adjectives describing this individual, including the ones possibly posted on this thread, like "wanker" and "douchebag". I'm no lawyer, tho.

LOL -- is that why there's a picture of a puppy in this post? Is it Mike Jandreau's puppy?

He posted his picture on a commercial website (that apparently he designed), I think that puts it over the line and into "fair use" country.
The terms of use of his website are written to be funny but aren't.
http://www.moviesnobs.net/tos.php

Can we see the letter you write back? Or is this post all that needs to be said?

Right to privacy? He posted his picture on the internet. He chose to make his image available on his site, and now you are using information avaiable to the public to give us information relating to what type of person is doing customer service. The picture illustrates that this is someone in America, or an American looking person giving the customer service. It is relevant in that you can tell its not an offshore resouce where someone might expect subpar service.

I love seeing retards involving their company attorneys, thinking that the second someone sees any sort of legal threat, they will comply with stupid requests. Does this douchebag think that Lycos would really initiate a lawsuit on his behalf? I know that if I was his supervisor and I got the bill from the legal department for his little pity party lawsuit, I would take it out of his pay.

I don't understand why the folks at Lycos don't just apologize and restore the e-mails.

They've already spent way more on lawyering-up than it would have cost them to be nice to their customer.

This is the funniest stuff on the Consumerist Show since Vincent Ferarri tried to cancel his AOL account. Except that it's kind of funnier, because while the suits at AOL quickly disowned the customer maltreatment, the suits at Lycos seem to be defending it.

i don't know what your pissed about mikey, you just got your five minutes of fame.
mike: your photo is public domain.
mark: your correspondence is a waste of time, with no legal grounds.

Hmmmm...I think you guys may have crashed his websites (or he took them down)...I can't seem to get http://www.mjjdesigns.net/ or http://www.mikejandreau.com/ to open...

Actually, I now have to respectfully agree with their attorneys. Not on legal grounds but on the plea towards decency. I don't know where this would necessarily fall in a court of law. As you all can see, there are differing opinions on the subject, mine being only one and admittedly one based on insufficient information.

That having been said, being a jack-ass does not justify getting death-threats. In light of this, taking the pictures down is the decent thing to do, whether or not it is legally required. Certainly, if Lycos' attorneys really believe in what they are saying they can obtain an immediate injunction upon a showing that this picture is truly violative of their client's privacy rights.

In any event, I think this is one where the Consumerist should capitulate and take the photo down. I think the guy learned his lesson. He certainly doesn't need to lose his life just because some crazed-overzealous Consumerist reader took matters into his/her own hands.

Course, if the guy is really that frightened maybe he should capitulate and apologize. Seems pretty simple to me.

TJF

The html document goes asmoething like this:

What a puss, he's fearing digg bandwidth charges I think.

Mark claims the only reason to post the photo is for harassment. That's just clearly false. When you read a story, it's nice to be able to put a face with a name. Newspapers and televised newscasts show people's faces all the time, and even when that person has done something unseemly or criminal it doesn't mean that they're trying to get that person harassed.

Mike is the manager at Lycos. He's such an important person -- of course, we'd like to see his picture.

The photo does seem relevent to the matter at hand, but does anyone know the law on that?

Can you use a photo that doesn't belong to you (legally, I mean) -- or is it a copyright violation?

I learned something today, and that is that Lycos still exists. Who knew?

Lycos was on the right for deleting the emails as it states on their website. Yet thier customer service was not right, I think they deserve all thats heading their way.

Do companeis liek these realize that continual customer service level of this will put them out of existance in 2 - 5 years. and in lycos case maybe even earlier.

Summary:

"Lycos is not asking that any of the content or substance posted on this website be removed... Please act responsibly and take this photo down asap. Thank you."

This site has not advocated the sending of death threats nor incited the Public into seeking out this man. The fact that he posted his OWN picture on a website, along with his personal information, is his own fault. If privacy is so important to him, why did he do all of that in the first place? Surley a webmaster and someone working at an Internet-based company would know the dangers associated with posting private content on the Web; therefore, it crosses my mind that the "I was ignorant" plea he makes is baseless.

Google knows all!

I searched Google for this guy's web sites to see what was in the cache. Google thinks I meant "http://www.baddesigns.net/".

You should ask for said emails as proof of supposed death threats.

I highly doubt they are real. In all honesty I have this suspicion all three emails where generated by the same man, a Mr. Mike Jandreau

Also just to clear a bit up for their "Deputy General Counsel" His photo IS fair use. I know this all too well from running a College Newspaper.

If Ben had broken into his house, illegal. Picture posted with his name by the man in question on the web and thus a public domain... legal and authorized by Mr. Jandreau. Posting that picture on the web was like him signing a contract.

Notice how the 'threatening emails' has diminished from 81 to 50. And if our comments don't bother him "in the slightest", why is he whining about 81 (50?) emails?

And any idiot who shows up to his job should be arrested.

By the way, what's a Lycos?

Like so many situations, if they had just waited a day it would be off the front page of this site.

Now that they're making a fuss, it's big news and will be updated daily, just like Barbara Streisand's house a while back.

One thing is clear: They either don't own the copyright to the photo or they know posting it is "fair use" else they'd be screaming "copyright infringement" and DMCA at the top of their lungs.

As has been stated earlier the "privacy right" to one's image doesn't apply to news organizations reporting on a story--otherwise all visual news media--print, broadcast, cable, web--would come to a crashing halt.

re: this post's photo: Lycos' logo is a fully-grown black lab.

When I was working as a CSR, I sometimes had to tell people things they didn't like and support crappy company policies.

I would have been horrified had my personal information been posted all over a blog simply because an unhappy customer didn't like the way my employer did business.

I don't think it's fair to this guy, whether or not he's a douchebag. I think the letters are pretty politely-worded, too, without being overly bullying. I'd go ahead and do it.

and that is a puppy.

Although the text of the blog itself contains numerous false, defamatory, and libelous statements regarding both Lycos and Mr. Jandreau, Lycos is not concerned with censoring this individual's speech.

Oh PLEASE!

"Oh, this customer is lying about us but we're not worried about that..."

How can they expect us to believe them or even take them seriously when they tell lies like that?

Hey, if what was said in the original post isn't true, how about refuting it?

Given the photo's complete lack of relevance or bearing on the applicable issue, there can be only one reason for its display -- to harass.

Wrong. Period. Now they're trying to say that Consumerist is encouraging people to harass him, which is stupid. He didn't get threats when he put up his photo on that other site, did he?

In all seriousness, coming from a customer service background, why would you have the guy that designed your website also be your customer service manager (maybe not the whole website, but at least the lycos help page)??

From my experience (this doesn't apply to everyone of course), the guys who make the webpages aren't necessarily who you want as your Customer Service Managers...which helps explain the situation in front of us...

From his website portfolio:

Work Done: The site was redesigned in April of 2006, using an application called DeskPro. DeskPro handles the incoming support tickets, as well as publishes the help articles to the web, using a tech Admin interface. My (Jandreau's) work included customizing the template to fit Lycos' color scheme, logo, and design standards; removing all unneccessary features in DeskPro; adding more efficient search capability, and performing daily maintenence on the website. The Lycos Help site is visited by 10-15,000 people on a daily basis, and supports approximately 6,500 members via e-mail ticketing on a daily basis. All database work is monitored for abuse, as well as stability.

I smell sockpuppets.....

I would ask for emails of the "death threats" complete with headers of course.

With Lycos being a big responsible ISP, it should be easy to track-down people who email death threats...right ?

What will be even funnier is when Lycos gets a real whiff of this and starts asking Mr. Jandreau exactly *what* he is doing and *why* he is speaking on behalf of Lycos Inc.

Although the text of the blog itself contains numerous false, defamatory, and libelous statements regarding both Lycos and Mr. Jandreau, Lycos is not concerned with censoring this individual's speech.

When I saw this, I immediately wondered if this guy is really a lawyer.

Most lawyers won't use the words libel or libelous, because in the US libel is almost impossible to prove (See US Constitution, 1st amendment) even if something is technically libelous.

A quick Google of Mark and Lycos has turned up nothing. Usually if you are the Deputy General Counsel of a company, somebody knows it.

Also the general feel of the letters "Mark" writes are very similar to the things Mike "The Ass Hat" Jandreau has written...

http://whois.domaintools.com/mjjdesigns.net
http://whois.domaintools.com/mikejandreau.com
http://whois.domaintools.com/moviesnobs.net

I always check the box "private registration".

Mark O. Blais said:

Michael has received over 50 threatening emails, many of which have contained death threats

But Mike said earlier that he had gotten 81 death threats. So I assume by "over 50," Blais means "over 81." And by "many of which," he mean "all of which."

That crazy lawyer language! I'll never understand it.

When I was working as a CSR, I sometimes had to tell people things they didn't like and support crappy company policies.

It's one thing to support a crappy company policy. It is quite another to be a jerk about it.

I would have been horrified had my personal information been posted all over a blog simply because an unhappy customer didn't like the way my employer did business.

I don't think it's fair to this guy, whether or not he's a douchebag.

What's not 'fair' here? That he's been publically outed for his jerkiness?

I think the letters are pretty politely-worded, too, without being overly bullying. I'd go ahead and do it.

olegna: I'm no lawyer, either, but I don't think terms like "meanypants" can really be taken as slander. Even calling the douchebag a pussy for getting so upset about being called "meanypants" wouldn't be slander, either.

But, you know... speaking hypothetically, of course, saying something like "That douchebag CSR verbally abused a customer" might be slanderous if it turned out not to be true, but I don't think anyone has said anything like that.

dwarf: The original complaint wasn't against Lycos's email deletion policy. Its against this douchebag CSR's bad attitude he used with the customer. The complaint is specifically about the asshat in the picture shown with the article. I suppose Lycos's response claiming that the picture was irrelevant confused you. But look back at the original article, at the picture. That's the meanypants.

As for the deleted emails, gone means gone. It wasn't "30 days and we move your mail to the trash folder". I really, really doubt she'll see those again.

When I saw this, I immediately wondered if this guy is really a lawyer.

Mark O. Blais is a lawyer -- a Google search for his name and a little digging turned that up. He apparently used to be with the Boston-area firm Goodwin Procter, but now only his wife is listed in their directory. It seems pretty feasible that he's at Lycos now. It's not so unbelievable that a small company like Lycos wouldn't go to the trouble of publicizing their legal team.

Now they want us to feel sorry for them. Have they at least apologized and returned the emails?

You can still view his webpages if you type his url's into google and click "cached" I think he's hiding under his blankets atm.

A quick Google of Mark and Lycos has turned up nothing. Usually if you are the Deputy General Counsel of a company, somebody knows it.

Well, I've actually tried it another way: I can't find teh name of any counsel for Lycos, which means the search you made does not preclude the possibility that Mark is, in fact, who he says he is.

That being said, in addition to libel being tough to prove, I believe libel is a subset of defamatory, making that sentance make less sense. However, I can also see Mark's message as something he tossed off without much review (especially if he's a young,chump lawyer who has no specialty in the area) in order to get this manager off his back so he could go back to the business law (or whatever area he picked) he usually practices.

Strange though, we went from "81 death threats since last night" to "over 50 threatening emails, many of which have contained death threats." So which is it? Did he accidently delete those emails or is Lycos holding them hostage now?
Oh and "Go to hell" is not a death threat, Mikey. Just want to clarify in case you were confused.

danggit Johnny, you beat me to it.

According to the Board of Bar Overseers' database, there is indeed a Mark O. Blais at Lycos. He's real.

http://massbbo.org/bbolookup.php?sl=blais&sf=&sc=&soundex=...

This blog kicks ass on so many levels, but this series of posts on Lycos is absolutely top-notch. I just had to comment to voice my approval. Keep up the good fight!

Mark could be "Deputy General Counsel" but there the man to be is Dan Sullivan, Senior Vice President & General Counsel:

http://info.lycos.com/management/exec_sullivan.html

I, for one, feel slighted that Consumerist only received the attention of the "Deputy General Counsel" and not the General Counsel himself. Can we at least get upgraded to the Lycos "Chancellor of the High Council" or the "Executive Assistant to the Vice President of Public Douchebaggery"??

If we get threats from Mr. Dan Sullivan, then wake me up. I don't want to miss it.

Perhaps instead of paying their attorney, Lycos should invest in some customer service training. And don't worry, Mike, your pudgy little face is etched in the Consumerist readers' collective memory. We won't threaten or harass you, but we will laugh at you and never buy your record.

Mark could be "Deputy General Counsel" but there the man to be is Dan Sullivan, Senior Vice President & General Counsel:

">http://info.lycos.com/management/exec_sullivan.html

Holy crap-- that isn't a Social Security number on that website, is it?