now you're gonna die wearing that stupid little hat, how does it feel?

posted to this is not a weblog
on apr 11th, 2005

tagged cars, legal mumbojumbo, nerd, web
and never commented on

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the lawyers of volkswagen of america have sent me a cease and desist letter for "infringement and dilution of volkswagen trademarks" on my audi/vw dealer ratings site. "by using VWoA's trademarks on [my] website, [i am] attempting to misappropriate the good will associated with VWoA and its products and services."

the letter is mandating that i remove all uses of volkswagen trademarks from the site (which i guess i can do by replacing all logos with text?) but also execute an agreement that i don't particularly like:

"The undersigned further agrees and acknowledges that any violation or breach of this Agreement will cause irreparable harm to VWoA, and that VWoA will be entitled to both a preliminary and permanent injunction against the undersigned for any violation of this Agreement, as well as any other remedy allowed by law. The undersigned further agrees that if it breaches this Agreement, it will pay all costs incurred by VWoA in enforcing this Agreement, including reasonable attorney's fees, whether incurred with or without suit or before or after judgment."

so i guess i'll be contacting a lawyer. i'm not going to take the site down and sign my life away.

i'm wondering if perhaps one of the poorly rated dealers happened to bring this to vwoa in order to shut the site down.

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