At Goldman Sachs, I guess their instructions for the blogosphere roughly sum up to what I’ve been told since I was five or so (but never exercised in practice): If you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all. At least that’s their instructions to Goldman Sachs 666:
The bank has instructed Wall Street law firm Chadbourne & Parke to pursue blogger Mike Morgan, warning him in a recent cease-and-desist letter that he may face legal action if he does not close down his website.
Florida-based Mr Morgan began a blog entitled “Facts about Goldman Sachs” – the web address for which is goldmansachs666.com – just a few weeks ago.
In that time Mr Morgan, a registered investment adviser, has added a number of posts to the site, including one entitled “Does Goldman Sachs run the world?”. However, many of the posts relate to other Wall Street firms and issues.
According to Chadbourne & Parke’s letter, dated April 8, the bank is rattled because the site “violates several of Goldman Sachs’ intellectual property rights” and also “implies a relationship” with the bank itself.
I’ve gotten C&D’s before, not for this website but for others (and we sent a fun one at my day-job not that long ag0) — unless someone is blatantly raising cash off the infringed trademark, most efforts to shut down websites are basically toothless. Sounds like “Mr. 666″ knows this, as he’s fought Lennar on these points before. All this has served to do is bring national attention to the Goldman Sachs 666 site, thus giving it that “where there’s smoke there’s fire” credibility that leads you to believe Morgan may be on to something. Worth checking out whether you’re a GS conspiracy theorist or not.
This can’t be new territory for Goldman either. From 2002-2004, GoldmanSuchs.com collected anecdotes from employees and speculated on GS’s demise. The last version of the site as captured by the Internet Wayback Machine can be seen here.
EDITED TO ADD: Mike Morgan is now asking a court to assert his rights. Impressive.
(h/t to Ryan Zent for the story idea)
TheGryphon // Apr 13, 2009 at 1:17 pm
OMG! GS is the new Illuminati … would that be the Failinati?
Jason // Apr 13, 2009 at 2:08 pm
Sounds like the plot for National Treasure 3 or the next Dan Brown novel, whichever typing monkeys work faster.
The Reformed Broker // Apr 13, 2009 at 8:58 pm
they should spend more time paying me back my tax money than suing pissant bloggers in Florida
btw, mike morgan has the homestead act on his side, they can take his domain in FL but not his house!
not that GS needs more real estate on the books!
lol
TRB
Fartles // Apr 13, 2009 at 9:37 pm
Wait, they took no TARP money, right? I have a feeling this isn’t a very intelligent question as I hit submit…
alyx // Apr 13, 2009 at 9:41 pm
yup, GS took $10bn — they are in the middle of issuing $5bn in shares which they plan to pair with $5bn they found under Lloyd’s couch to pay it back.
Unience Blog · El mayor banco de inversión mundial contra un blog // Apr 15, 2009 at 3:26 am
[...] Goldman Sachs lance una ofensiva de este tipo contra un blog. En muchos otros blogs, como éste o éste, se mofan de la decisión de Goldman y la interpretan como un intento de limitar las críticas [...]