thedealdude said:

<< Somebody please post the NAME of the lawyer that sent this email along with contact information. Please. >>

Was it an e-mail? If they sent an e-mail then legally you can disregard that. They have no legal repercussions unless they send a certified letter.

I'd say send emails to the 4 sites. Explaining why you refuse to spend money at the stores this holiday season. Buy everything online from Amazon or other locations:

Walmart: Walmart Link
Best Buy: Best Buy Link
Target: Target Link
Staples: Staples Link

SERVES YOU RIGHT

What, you didn't know this is coming? Advertisers use sale prices to judge the effectiveness of an advertising channel. FatWallet distorts that channel and makes the advertising feedback useless, causing companies to lose millions of dollars in information harvesting contracts. This is an INFORMATION ECONOMY and you are POISONING THE INFORMATION.

Did you think The Law wouldn't catch up with you? The Digital Millenium Copyright Act is a new law designed to catch a new kind of thief, and you people just hit it like a brick wall. Whine all you want; as a Wal-Mart klerck, I personally wish the DMCA would give the FBI first-strike capability to put you people in jail. Posting Wal-Mart sale prices early causes masses of people to descend on my store out of the blue, makes my job harder, and causes Wal-Marts profit margin to shrink, which impacts my salary. I have children to feed.

I have no tolerance for you people at all.

I hope Susanna was joking because it was actually pretty funny. You got children to feed? Then why are you working at WalMart as a sales person? What does that make ya? $7 an hour or something? Oh I know, you are probably a high school drop out who got pregnant at age 16, that explains it all.

sobenson said:

<< JakeThePimp said:

<< Also, On another note, Can't we beat this by posting deals without dollar ($$$$$) signs? Or insted of 29.99 we make it -30 therfore we do not copy anything. >>

No because then we are lying. >>

lying? well we know they are lying for sure if they claim this is an issue with competition P-L-E-A-S-E!!

JDMnAR is on the right track and i will add that in addition to consumers not spending money today they fear that consumers will spend less money later as well. this type of information can keep their greatest salesman of all-time from reaching his goal this "Black Friday". someone mentioned planning their shopping - heh, this is exactly what they don't want! these mega-stores that stock the shelves to the ceiling and have 50 of every item on the shelf get fat (no pun intended) off of their hall of fame salesman/woman - and his name tag reads Impulse ? - and you can place your last name where the question mark is. no they don't want you to toss around the figures with your friends before you get to the damn store. in that case Impulse should just call in sick. the more people that know ahead of time that BF is this weekend the more customers they get that realize their so-called sales aren't really that great. i guarantee you that those same sale prices are a must have when seeing them in the store for the first time. now, i am talkig about the average consumer not us hot-deals nuts that refuse to buy something that's on sale for 50% off unless there's a rebate or a coupon for the other half.

What about all the small mom and pops that you are helping to put out of business by working at WalMart...and then there's Wal Mart's negotiating pressure tactics with its vendors...

Dear Susanna:

Everybody already told you you were stupid because you are a woman. Why not listen? What the fools on FatWallet are doing here is morally reprehensible, yes, but the DMCA has nothing to do with it. As much as I'd love to see each and every one of these penny-pinching, job-destroying, bank-breaking pigs go to jail, as a lawyer I'm smart enough to realise that what they're doing is perfectly legal. Even if there was a DMCA violation, I would not support their prosecution of this site. It is a horribly flawed law, used only for selective enforcement in order to censor individuals. I am able to look beyond my prejudices and see the truth of the matter; why can't you, Susanna?

AND WE HAVE NO TOLERANCE FOR YOU, MONEY GRUBBING CORPORATE TYPES THAT HAVE SH-T FOR ETHICS AND WILL DO JUST ABOUT ANYTHING TO SCREW THE AVERAGE COMSUMER OUT OF THEIR HARD-EARNED MONEY, JUST TO SATISFY THEIR STOCKHOLDERS ! ! ! !

ENRON IS JUST THE START - WE'LL BRING ALL YOU GREEDY BASTRDS DOWN ! ! ! !

Susanna said:

<< SERVES YOU RIGHT

What, you didn't know this is coming? Advertisers use sale prices to judge the effectiveness of an advertising channel. FatWallet distorts that channel and makes the advertising feedback useless, causing companies to lose millions of dollars in information harvesting contracts. This is an INFORMATION ECONOMY and you are POISONING THE INFORMATION.

Did you think The Law wouldn't catch up with you? The Digital Millenium Copyright Act is a new law designed to catch a new kind of thief, and you people just hit it like a brick wall. Whine all you want; as a Wal-Mart klerck, I personally wish the DMCA would give the FBI first-strike capability to put you people in jail. Posting Wal-Mart sale prices early causes masses of people to descend on my store out of the blue, makes my job harder, and causes Wal-Marts profit margin to shrink, which impacts my salary. I have children to feed.

I have no tolerance for you people at all. >>

I'm a Target employee, and I absolutely agree with any sort of boycott. I disagree with many of the practices of Target and others.. this is just an example of one such practice.

I'm fortunate enough not to rely on Target to provide me with a reasonable income, because I would never make it. Maybe you Wal-Martians make more than I do - I make slightly over California's minimum wage - and get discounts that actually make a difference in what you pay. On a side note.. face it, we're all going to be replaced by computers doing our jobs in 10 years anyway. Our companies aren't going to be loyal to us, so why should we be loyal to our companies?

I don't believe posting prices will make a significant impact on overall sales and I don't believe that such posting violates the DMCA. One could argue that it violates standard copyright laws, but it seems more like a game of who has the biggest and baddest lawyers.

If you are in that much fear of losing your job, maybe it's time for you to find a steadier one. If you're not part of at least your store management team, then retail isn't much of a career anyway, despite the propaganda the company throws at you. It might be time for you to move on, or perhaps pick up some non-retail work in addition. Seriously.