Thanks everyone for your comments on the Gartner cease and desist. I greatly appreciate the support. It seems the old David and Goliath pattern still has some legs. As Seth Godin said yesterday:
“Just as asymmetrical warfare has turned our geopolitical system upside down, the same thing is happening in the marketing world. While it’s tempting to spend all your time stamping out the little enemies, the architecture of the system favors a strategy of embracing and leveraging your happy constituents instead.”
Gartner should probably heed this advice. Let me tell you: there are nothing better than happy constituencies.
It seems the missing link is now widely distributed. You almost wonder if Gartner planned this all as extra publicity for its new BI quadrant…
David Rossiter at Sunesis turned up something interesting; I am increasingly wondering whether the note to me was actually intended for SAS, which has apparently been posting the URL openly on some online fora.
So what did Gartner actually say? The mail is short and not so sweet, if slightly less aggressive than it felt when I first read it: one reason I took it seriously was the pointer to a copyright policy at the bottom of the email, which is of course a legal instrument. I was also disappointed that when I replied to the email I heard nothing back. That said, its also important to say that the term “cease and desist” is evidently open to some question. My C&D was not written by an attorney, and if that’s part of your definition, then it was not a C&D at all, so much as a slightly threatening email. According to Wikipedia “A cease-and-desist letter can be sent by anyone, although typically they are drafted by a lawyer.” What really got me however, was that I wasn’t asked to do something, I was ordered to.
Mr. Governor,
Recently, the following blog post from July 4, 2006 came to my attention: http://www.redmonk.com/jgovernor/index.html. In it, you link directly to the following report: http://mediaproducts.gartner.com/reprints/sas/vol2/article1/article1.html. This report is a reprint which a vendor has purchased for its own use. Therefore, your link constitutes an unauthorized use, and it must be removed immediately.
Please confirm receipt of this email, as well as the link’s immediate removal.
Prize for best idea for what comes next – Dana Gardner over at Interarbor Solutions suggested we sell the link on eBay, and find out what its actually worth…
I also just want to clarify that the comment “from Gartner” on my last post wasn’t really from Gartner. It was a hoax so I deleted it at the request of the hoaxer. It seems there is a whole lot of redaction going on…
So thanks again for your support, everyone.
redmonk, gartner, cease+desist, copyright, sunesis, SAS, Dana+Gardner
/pd says:
July 14, 2006 at 4:28 pm
Intersting …the redaction link points to a page which has not been taken down on their side.
Funny I also read this …..
“Gartner shall have no liability for errors, omissions or inadequacies in the information contained herein or for interpretation”
So why would Gartner, ask you to remove the link out.. when their own notice clearly indicates that they have no liablitity on the content /page ??
What is the motivation ?? Did they just play you up for link harversting and we all got suckerd into it ?? if so, the strategy worked, but their repuatation dropped !!
thanks for posting, I was one of those lookin for the orginal email :)-
Allison, Gartner Vendor Relations Manager says:
July 14, 2006 at 6:04 pm
Hi James,
You were right; quite honestly, I misread the context of the link. Please accept my sincere apologies for asking you to take it down from your blog. There are no copyright restrictions around listing public urls in blogs.
Reading through the long string of comments from your readers, I saw that one is authored “Gartner.” I’m not sure who wrote it, but it wasn’t an official response from us.
If you want to discuss this further, please don’t hesitate to call me.
Again, apologies for my mistake.
Regards
Allison
Vendor Relations Manager
Gartner, Inc.
Jason Wood says:
July 14, 2006 at 8:47 pm
Allison,
Glad to see this “mistake” has been taken care of. You all seemed to be embracing the blogosphere more and it would be a shame to see such a startling retrenchment.
James, attaboy.
ed markham says:
July 14, 2006 at 9:05 pm
Btw, the Gartner link is also available from Cognos’s website. Do they pay for that privilege? 😉
thomas otter says:
July 15, 2006 at 6:55 am
Well done to Gartner for apologising.
James says:
July 15, 2006 at 11:55 am
Apologizing is one thing, but they should do a little more than that. How about asking Gartner to change their policies…
Stiennon says:
July 15, 2006 at 8:08 pm
Here’s my question. Should I send a C&D to Gartner regarding this: http://www.gartner.com/AnalystBiography?authorId=18676
It is an analyst profile for me! I have not been employed by Gartner for close to two years. This link is the third result if you Google my name. They are muddying my brand! 🙂
-Stiennon
Ryan Tomayko says:
July 16, 2006 at 12:26 pm
Bravo!