When you smurf, what do you smurf about? (original) (raw)

UPDATE (2005-12-14): yet another threat

So I suppose the IMPS haven't given up yet: I received another threat from them (on December 2nd; I hadn't posted it till now as I figured it'd be wise to ask an attorney to vet my response first). In this email, they threaten to "transmit" my "file" over to their lawyer if I don't shut the site down by December 15th. Not gonna happen.

UPDATE (2005-11-23): you can't keep a good Smurf down ...

Those of you who have read the threat emails (below) from the folks who own the little blue metasyntactic variables will note that the deadline by which they demanded this site be taken down has passed with no action. Of course, they haven't sent a retraction or an apology either, so they may still be plotting something.

UPDATE (2005-11-16): odd (old) press mention

Apparently the WebSmurfer came to the attention of a publication called Government Computer News, in a brief bit (dated "12/15/03") titled How much annoying jargon on your agency's Web site? (although they munged the site's URL in their article, so the link they give doesn't work); they quote snippets of translated pages from the web sites of the White House, the F.B.I. and the C.I.A.. Since we actually tuned the translation file for these sites earlier this week, it's a shame that link's broken.

UPDATE (2005-11-13): smurflaw.suxs.net

Here's something else for which the online community can now thank Olivia and the IMPS (see their legal threat emails below): SuxS.Net. I registered that domain and set the new site up to let anyone in the world who wants to set up a critical or satirical site without the danger of losing the site's name to the UDRP (or most trademark laws) register a safe name for their site. Using this, the WebSmurfer is now available as smurflaw.suxs.net.

UPDATE (2005-11-10): log oddities

So, I was looking through the site logs this afternoon to see what sort of sites are referring all this new traffic and found a fascinating link to this site: it's in the web version of Appendix A to the Edelman Expert Report, from the case Multnomah County Public Library et al., vs. United States of America, et al.. Apparently the WebSmurfer was on the short-list of incorrectly blocked sites in that case, and was listed (with link) in the documents submitted by the ACLU, which eventually went to the Supreme Court.

Apparently the censorware company N2H2 had this site listed under "Adults Only, Nudity, Pornography, Sex"; now they have it listed under "Loop Hole Sites", which I suppose is a bit more appropriate.

UPDATE (2005-11-10): so now this site is back up and functioning

I want to thank Olivia Rodriguez and her employer "International Merchandising, Promotion & Services" for providing that little boost of motivation I needed to finally get this site re-built after my server's drives crashed; without her emails (see below) I might very well not have gotten around to it.

Also, it looks like Google has re-indexed so the Smurf Name Generator has now dropped out completely (presumably because it's been returning 404s since it's owner received his threat letter) and The WebSmurfer is 2nd in Google searches for "smurf". So I guess I need to thank Olivia and the IMPS for boosting me in Google's search listings as well.

UPDATE (2005-11-09): and in other news ...

An article about this went up at The Register, which seems to have been picked up by a lot of news and blog sites in Europe (particularly .nl and, home of the Smurfs themselves, .be). This site receives about 30k hits per month normally, and today alone it's gotten 29k. Yow.

UPDATE (2005-11-08): apparently this is happening to other smurf-related sites too ...

So, it looks like this is one of those things a law firm sticks the interns on when there's no photocopying to do, since it appears that the fellow who ran the site 2nd highest on Google searches for "smurf" (the WebSmurfer is 3rd) also received one. His Smurf Name Generator is currently offline while he discusses the threat he received with his lawyer.

UPDATE (2005-11-08): this site is still being legally threatened!

Apparently this corporation, and I'm not entirely certain what their name is, really want to shut down my little site. Perhaps they haven't noticed that three crashing hard drives have pretty much accomplished their goal for them, albeit only temporarily. Here's the latest round of email (see the section below for more):

UPDATE (2005-11-02): this site is also being legally threatened!

As if the joy of trying to recover from a drive crash weren't enough, I also received a threatening email this morning from someone claiming to represent whatever corporation currently controls the legal rights to a variety of Smurf-related trademarks. Apparently they feel that this site's URL, which they had incorrect, infringes on these trademarks; they made no mention of the site's content, in case you're curious. Here's the correspondence so far: