Last year, Dr. Simon Singh was sued by the British Chiropractic Association for publishing his doubts on what some chiropractors were claiming their care could cure.  His article in the Guardian explained  there was little (if any) evidence to support some of the claims used by the BCA concerning what chiropractors could treat.  The resulting law suit got very messy and,  because the UK laws greatly favor those who claim defamation, things are not going well for the BCA.  Much attention is now focused on the questionable treatments the BCA once boasted about.

Surprisingly, much of the “dirt” that has resulted from this case has been uncovered by a group of bloggers that dug deeper into the case than some UK journalists.  One blogger reports that every chiropractor associated with the BCA is being examined for false marketing claims.  The findings show that a staggering one in four chiropractors in Britain are now under investigation for allegedly making misleading claims in advertisements.

If the BCA is smart, they will rethink their marketing plan STAT, or the world of chiropractic “medicine” will change forever.

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A “crack-down” on UK Chiropractors

Well, law professor Karin Calvo-Goller didn’t get the memo.

After writing a book entitled Trial Proceedings of the International Criminal Court: ICTY and ICTR Precedents; fellow law professor Thomas Weigend responds with a critical and somewhat negative review. Calvo-Goller’s reaction? Quite negative as well.

Rather than accepting that others views often differ from your own, she demanded that Weigend suppress the review for fear it would negatively impact her reputation.  When her request was declined, Calvo-Goller brought him to court on the grounds of criminal libel.

Whew, her feelings were really hurt.

What did Calvo-Goller do wrong in this situation?  Rather than covering up the fact she may or may not have written a credible ICC “Trial Proceedings” book, she illuminated the fact that she may or may not have written a credible ICC “Trial Proceedings” book.

Genius.

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Don’t cry over bad reviews

The story became viral most recently when South Butt released a Facebook app that allows you to use your judgment to see if you can “tell a butt from a face.”  The popularity of the app strengthens South Butt’s case that their brand is truly a mere parody and proves that the class clown can sometimes come out ahead of the school bully.

North Face’s decision to sue ultimately ruined their reputation.  Sorry Biff, your days are over.

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Pick on somebody your own size.

Florida Congressman, Alan Grayson (Rep), should have kept his mouth shut (is that even possible for a politician?) when a local Florida resident expressed her views of the Congressman online.

Angie Langley set up a blog entitled MyCongressmanIsNuts.com, in parody to Grayson’s site, CongressmanWithGuts.com.  Within the content of her blog Langley falsely claimed she was a constituent of Grayson’s district, amongst other negative propaganda against the politician.

In response to Langley’s site, Grayson sent a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder stating that she is misrepresenting herself as Grayson’s constituent, and should be fined and jailed for 5 years!

Not only did Grayson turn a non-issue into a major issue, but he also brought Langley’s campaign to the public eye.  Major news networks have posted articles on this story, and Langley has had some time in front of the camera herself.

Seems like the only person benefiting from Grayson’s request for imprisonment is Langley.  It’s certainly not Grayson.

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Congressman Lives up to Reputation

According to TechDirt, Tiger’s London based lawyers have recently gagged the UK press from discussing certain details of his personal life.  This only means one thing – there are more saucy details yet to be revealed about Tiger’s escapades.  The question is, what are these details?

Reuters.com published an article mentioning this court order, and noted that the request specifically banned any British media from publishing nude photos or video of Tiger having sex.  Of course, that’s “not to be taken as an admission that any such photographs exist.”

They’re just covering their bases, right?  Maybe a better option would have been to keep their mouths shut altogether rather than bringing up the “supposed” pictures in the first place.

Just wait until the US media gets ahold of this one…those photos won’t be so private anymore!

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Tiger has more to reveal

When you sign up, you pay about $5 for shipping and that’s it.  However, buried deep in the site it tells you that they’ll be sending you a bunch of other stuff and charging you $290 for it.  Not good.

Michael Arrington at TechCrunch called them out on it, and they’ve responded by loudly complaining about it.  Their complaints have led to even more people finding out about what they do.

The Consumerist has a great recap of the entire situation.  Not only are they apparently a very shady company, they’re pretty dumb too.  When someone writes stuff like that about your company, the last thing you want to do is draw more attention to it.  Oops…

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The Video Professor wants to make sure you know how scammy he is.

As TechDirt points out, there are two big problems with this:

1 — He likely doesn’t hold the copyright on the photo.
2 — Even if he does, it’s very clearly a fair use claim.

In the end, it just draws more people to the story.  I had never heard about Mr. Jones or this situation before, but now he’s bringing it all back to the forefront.

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D. Marvin Jones can’t let it go

The ad was highlighted on PhotoshopDisasters, as an example of (we really hope) bad Photoshopping.  However, Ralph Lauren filed a (bogus) DMCA takedown notice on the post, which has since been removed.

That’s the end of it, right?  Post removed, story gone.  Ha!  BoingBoing has now covered the story, as has the Huffington Post, TechDirt and others.  Ralph Lauren filed a DMCA complaint against BoingBoing, but their ISP (Canada’s Priority Colo) knows what they’re doing, and didn’t remove the post.  They spoke with BoingBoing about it, and decided (rightfully) that the post can stay.

Not only can we all see the insane ad, but we can see just how out of touch Ralph Lauren is.

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Ralph Lauren doesn’t like that you don’t like their ad

A customer of the Rocky Mountain Bank asked to have some loan documents sent to one of their representatives.  The bank sent the documents to someone with a similar e-mail address, and also included an attachment that held informtion on 1,325 other customers — names, tax ids, social security numbers, etc.  Amusingly, the bank employee then “tried to recall the e-mail without success”.  Yeah, I don’t think so.  You can read details about the breach here (PDF).

So far, Google is holding strong.  They say they won’t comply with a court order, even after which their policy is to notify an account holder and give the person a chance to object to the disclosure of their identity.

This is really so simply it’s stupid — if you want to keep a low profile, don’t sue Google.

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Bank screws up; tries to sue Google so word doesn’t get out

The story was starting to die down a bit, but Rick made sure it was front and center.  He called a press conference to discuss it, during which he told everyone to stop talking about it.  Huh?  What had drifted to being a third page story was now on the front page of every paper again — because of him!

To make it worse, he did some dumb things.  He loves to discuss national tragedies to make his problems seem relatively meek.  He brought up 9/11 in the past, and used Ted Kennedy this time.  The Sporting News theorizes that his statements during the press conference may get the trial moved to another state, which will be a headache for Rick to travel to during the basketball season.

Rick — you were advised by your lawyers not to say anything else.  Next time, listen to them!

You can watch the press conference below:

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Rick Pitino wants the press to not report on his press conference