Freescore.com Sues Yahoo To Reveal Blogger's Identity
Freescore.com is one of those online companies that offers a free trial, and then attempts to enroll its customers in a $30/month subscription service. Now they're suing Yahoo in an attempt to reveal an anonymous blogger who quoted a Reuters article when criticizing the service, and who pointed out that Freescore is owned by a company with a reputation for billing customers without permission.
You may have seen Ben Stein hawking Freescore.com on your TV in recent months. (It's why he was fired from the New York Times in August, in fact, because of a perceived conflict of interest.) It's no different from any other "free" credit report nonsense out there in that after a short trial period—7 days in this case—you have to pay for what you can get for free once a year from annualcreditreport.com. The company exists to lure in people who don't mind paying unnecessary fees, as well as people who don't read fine print, as well as those who do read fine print but forget to cancel within that 7 day window. Freescore.com is even more obnoxious in that it will charge you $1 to access your "free" initial results; the fine print says that if you choose to cancel within 7 days, "remember to ask for a refund of your $1 processing fee."
For those reasons, Reuters blogger Felix Salmon called Stein a "predatory bait-and-switch merchant" in July, and someone called "Flâneur de fraude" added to the claim in a blog post, where he showed that Freescore is ultimately owned by Vertrue Inc., a company that has a BBB rating of "F", mostly due to complaints that Vertrue's various membership companies enrolled customers without their knowledge or permission.
Somehow, that spurred Freescore to retaliate with legal action. But what's weird is although they're making a lot of noise about defamation and trade libel, and they've filed a suit with Yahoo to get Flâneur's real name revealed, they haven't actually argued that anything Flâneur posted was false. They haven't even gone after Felix Salmon, the original blogger at Reuters.
So is Freescore.com planning on suing Flâneur if they can find out her real name? If so, for what? As you can see from her blog post, the original content she added to the story was all about tracing ownership and pointing out the history of complaints against Freescore's parent company.
The happy ending (at least so far) is that Flâneur has brought bigger guns to the fight:
At that point, Flâneur sprung into action, and got the Public Citizen Litigation Group involved. They have now filed a monster 43-page brief with the Connecticut court, and after reading it one has difficulty imagining that any judge will compel Yahoo to unmask Flâneur. Public Citizen's press release is here, and the headline sums it up: the blogger who criticized freescore.com, it says, has the right to remain anonymous.
Adaptive has never complained to Flâneur, to me, or to anybody else, as far as I can tell, about any of our characterizations of their business. They never asked for any of our blog entries to be updated or edited, and they were conspicuous by their absence during the brouhaha over Ben Stein. If they had any problem with the blog entries, that was the time to say so - not now, when the whole episode is already half-forgotten.
Instead, knowing that Flâneur values her anonymity, they decided to try to unmask her in Connecticut court. I hope and trust that now, with the intervention of Public Citizen, they will fail miserably.
"Ben Stein's sleazy paymasters" [Reuters]
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"Developments about Adaptive Marketing's suit to identify critical blogger" [CL&P]
"Ben Stein steals your money" [flâneur de fraude]
"Ben Stein, predatory bait-and-switch merchant" [Reuters]
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Comments:
"Freescore.com" is woefully misleading. I was expecting to score some. For free.
Maybe I should sue.
Are there still people in this country who believe that things are free?
Companies that want to keep things quiet should realize that the publicity of suing causes the Streissand effect
@changed my name: Air is free...isn't it? Nevermind, we have to pay premiums to keep our health so that we're alive to breathe.
Surprised a new tag along the lines of "Anonymity Reveal" hasn't been added with all the court orders going around recently to reveil personal information of internet account holders.
@changed my name: Except that credit reports can actually be had for free. And thats what the gripe against these companies is about. They are scamming people who can afford it the least into paying for stuff they can get for free.
Where is their case here anyway?
@changed my name: My elderly mother. I just found out today that she was going to let some company come out and test her water for free. I'm sure they'd "find" something wrong and then have a lovely filtration system to sell her for a couple thousand dollars.
The amazing thing is that the blogger responsible for this so called "libel" and "defamation" is getting a paycheck and isn't anonymous at all. It's the poor girl repeating the work of said public blogger that's getting attacked.
So very, very weird.
@changed my name: I hear if you drive in NYC, and you don't gun it as soon as the red light goes dark you'll get Free Obscenities-and-Honking courtesy of the Taxi Union.
See, those nice union boys do lots for the tourism board for free.
How did Ben Stein get so famous? He's everywhere. He even answers the phone for Comcast!
First he falls for Creationism and makes a whole movie about it, now he's peddling interwebnet credit scores?
Oh Mr. Stein, how you have fallen.
@Hoss: Bueller?... Bueller?... Bueller?
In 1930, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives, in an effort to alleviate the effects of the... Anyone? Anyone?... the Great Depression, passed the... Anyone? Anyone? The tariff bill? The Hawley-Smoot Tariff Act? Which, anyone? Raised or lowered?... raised tariffs, in an effort to collect more revenue for the federal government. Did it work? Anyone? Anyone know the effects? It did not work, and the United States sank deeper into the Great Depression. Today we have a similar debate over this. Anyone know what this is? Class? Anyone? Anyone? Anyone seen this before? The Laffer Curve. Anyone know what this says? It says that at this point on the revenue curve, you will get exactly the same amount of revenue as at this point. This is very controversial. Does anyone know what Vice President Bush called this in 1980? Anyone? Something-d-o-o economics. "Voodoo" economics.
@howie_in_az: Seriously, for someone who peddled himself as an intellectual, he has made some very poor public decisions.
Thanks, Howie. I thought he was the idiot behind the "documentary" saying Creationism was not being taught in school and evolution was no more valid that an belief in an invisible cloud-being. Ben is a scumbag. Sue me, you asshole!
@howie_in_az: Considering after Nixon resigned, he blamed Woodward and Bernstein for the Khmer Rouge, I'd say creationism and predatory charges are a step up.
I used to love Ben Stein. He was intelligent (Win Ben Stein's Money!), had a great dry wit (Clear Eyes?). Starting with the Creationism movie, he seems to have lost some of his intellect.
And is it just me, or does Ben look really uncomfortable in doing those Freescore commercials? And if it's Freescore.com, why are they always advertising Freescore[nn].com in the commercials?
@SacraBos: "And if it's Freescore.com, why are they always advertising Freescore[nn].com in the commercials? "
That's how they track where you saw the original ad. [nn] tells them what medium and which ad group got them the hit.
And Ben... as someone who didn't automatically roll his eyes at Expelled, (and, in fact, rather enjoyed it), please please renounce these Freescore Scumbags. Your perceived Intelligence Quotient is dropping by ten points every time I endure one of those *%%$ing ads...
@SacraBos:
"Starting with the Creationism movie, he seems to have lost some of his intellect."
Well, technically, the movie was a result of him having lost most of his intellect.
I have read a lot of Mr. Stein's books and enjoy them quite a bit (especially "How to Ruin Your Life"),and the guy has a certain dry wit But...
When I saw him shilling for the crooks that run Freescore while watching college football this week ,I almost dropped my triple pepperoni pizza snacks. I mean ,here is a pretty well known and accomplished author ,actor and economist pitchig a rip off service that even he knows you can obtain for free just by asking. Does this guy have tax problems or is he just greedy and stupid about whoring his credibility ?
I guess you ahve to be careful who you look up to.
If they're trying to stop the word from spreading, they're doing it wrong, just as many other companies do.
Most of the time, nobody will listen to just one insignificant blogger, but as soon as a company files a lawsuit or tries to force them to take down their post, what was an insignificant blogger becomes a victim in a news story.
Word spreads from there and people curiously seek out what was said, and it's always available somewhere on the internet, even if the original is taken down.
You just can't have something taken down from the internet. Once it's there, it's there forever, and attempting to remove it to keep it secret will only make it spread.
@changed my name: "Are there still people in this country who believe that things are free?"
God, are you the only person on this planet who has never heard of Google? How about radio? Broadcast television?
What's "Flâneur" translate as?
@Eyebrows McGee (now with more baby!): It's someone who hangs around, loiters, spends a lot of time around something/someone, etc.
@JGKojak: Same one Rocky Mountain Bank had against that anonymous gmail shlub, I would think. Until I saw that update, I would have been pretty confident this would get laughed out of court. >_<
@changed my name: Of course things are free, or do you have to pay when you walk down a sidewalk, sit in a local park, borrow a library book, or get a weather report?
Am I supposed to start charging every random person who stops me to task for directions? For that matter, how many of us are getting paid for our comments here?
@rosvicl: Actually one could argue those things aren't free and funded by tax dollars and cable bills.
Just wanted to play devil's advocate there...
@howie_in_az: Yeah, when you watch Ben Stein sitting in the middle of Dachau actually coming to the conclusion that Darwin was responsible for the Holocaust in that "documentary"...you realize how far he's fallen.
I really had a strong desire to punch him in the face after seeing that scene - not that the rest of the documentary wasn't much better - but that was awful. He really has done nothing to reverse the feeling.
It's a good thing that I'm not an actual punch-you-in-the-face kind of person. Just a think-about-it kind of person.
Reuters blogger Felix Salmon called Stein a "predatory bait-and-switch merchant" in July, and someone called "Flâneur de fraude" repeated the claim in a blog post.
Salmon manned up and used his name.
Flâneur de fraude is a wimp.
Freescore and their kind are not willing to go after somebody who is secure in his name/identity and willing to express his thoughts while attaching his name to the document. AKA John Hancock syndrom.
Flâneur de fraude is a wimp. Speaking ill of others (even if it is the truth... anybody remember King George?) and hide behind a fake name is bound to bring out the bullies in the world.
@rosvicl:Charging random people for directions; you should try that, just to see the looks on peoples' faces. I bet it would be amusing. :D
Some one needs to tell those freecredit scumbags that any press is good press only works for hollywood hos with no panties.
And people wonder why I make comments about "repugnicans" on here - this is the latest example. Someone (Ben Stein) who holds himself up as an alleged quality fiscal and social conservative activist is actively affiliated with an unethical anti-consumer organization, further aggressively now coming after bloggers and consumers for exercising their first amendment rights when they simply tell the truth about this scummy company.
If I were Flaneur I would countersue to find out who everyone is on their board, who all of their friends are, their phone numbers, home addresses, where they bank and everything else. Then go after all of their sponsors and the places that carry their advertising. Two can play at that game!
Ben Stein was famous long before the existence of Win Ben Stein's money. He was a speechwriter and lawyer for President Richard Nixon as well as for President Gerald Ford. He has also been a trial lawyer for the FTC. He's also an actor that has appeared in a number of tv shows and movies perhaps most famously as a teacher in Ferris Bueller's Day Off.
You forgot to add the part about Yahoo not showing up to court and the judge ruling in Freescore.com's favor.
Once again, Ben Stein shows how much of a shill he is. First it was the sham of a documentary, now its being associated with these freedom hating jerks.
Seriously, this and the CEO of Stardock admitting that he believes that Obama is a flagrant racist makes me feel very unsure of the path Comerica is on.
Where's the EFF on this?? They need to get on it.
Hey, if theres a judge out there ignorant enough of how the internet works that he can order google to shut down an account because of bank negligence, its better to safeguard the blogger's identity than risk allowing Vertrue and Freescore.com get the identity and plot revenge...
"Somehow, that spurred Freescore to retaliate with legal action. But what's weird is although they're making a lot of noise about defamation and trade libel, and they've filed a suit with Yahoo to get Flâneur's real name revealed, they haven't actually argued that anything Flâneur posted was false"
They know what they are doing, they just want other people to STFU about it so they can keep making money.