You Know Blogs Have Come Of Age

When people start threatening to sue.......

From Jason Cherniak's blog:

Threats from Ipsos

For the post directly below, where I question the value of online polls in general, I just received a threat from Ipsos Camelford Graham. I reproduce it in full:

-----Original Message-----
From: Josh Somer [mailto:Josh.Somer@ipsos-cg.com]
Sent: February 21, 2007 3:18 PM
To: jason@jasoncherniak.com
Subject: Some friendly advice

Jason, if you do not want to hear from a lawyer, I would strongly suggest that you retract what you wrote about Ipsos on your little blog. We take attacks on our reputation VERY seriously and I doubt that you can afford to find out just how seriously.

_______________________________
Josh Somer
Research Associate
Ipsos Camelford Graham
2300 Yonge St., Suite 1001
Toronto, ON M4P 1E4
416.440.1016 x252
http://www.ipsos-cg.com

UPDATE at 5:05pm

It seems that Mr. Somer was speaking for himself and not Ipsos.

If Mr. Somer wants to know why I took it seriously, he might want to consider that:

1) The email was sent from his company account;
2) He threatened that I would hear from a lawyer;
3) He explained that "we take attacks on our reputation very seriously" [emphasis added];
4) He threated financial ruin; and
5) He included only a corporate signature, and no personal signature.

If Mr. Somer had no right to speak on behalf of Ipsos in threatening me, then he also has no right to speak on behalf of Ipsos in withdrawing his threat. The fact of the matter is that I was threatened by an employee of Ipsos, ostensibly on behalf of the corporation. I would feel more comfortable if I had an apology from somebody with authority to speak on behalf of Ipsos, who can confirm that Mr. Somer was not speaking on behalf of the company.

Posted by Jason Cherniak at 3:21 PM