How an email ruined my morning...

11/05/2008 11:05 AM by Chris Toohey

I just had an exchange that left me feeling horrible. And the more and more I think about it, I can't help but feel worse.

This morning I received the following:

Subject: Please update your site

Can you please update your site re: your flash banner/Company X
We purchased the business and have changed the website and your banner is no longer longer being used. However, it shows up in the google search.
We have purchased all the rights to the name of Company X, and no longer wish to have that posted on your site.

This email refers to the following article, where I was showing off (with the permission of the owner at the time of publication) the Flash banners and their integration with Domino (via our CRM solution). Now, the only real mention of the company - now Company X - was in the title of each article and in the body of the first.

If you Google, well, Company X, you would see the article as the second hit, with their website being the first.

So, while the mature, level-headed now-30 me was very "meh" over the whole thing, that damn-the-man 19 me wanted to break something. So, after taking a few moments and chatting with some friends over it, I replied with the following:

This is a surprise to say the least - especially as most organizations prefer as many positive context inbound links for their business websites, thus pushing their own website higher in search results indexing, as possible!

While I don't think there is precedent requiring that I remove references to "Company X" as 1) I had express permission of it's usage from the original owner and 2) it is a fact that - at the time of publication of the articles in question - Company X was both an active customer of Clearframe, LLC and used the subject Flash banners, I have nonetheless removed any reference to Company X from the 3 publications on DominoGuru.com.

Yeah, I made the changes. I made them, but modifying a published article on this site - let alone at the whim of a new company owner who is solely interested in boosting her Google statistics - well, it left me feeling... victimized, maybe? Certainly was a buzzkill, and has put me in a mood that I wasn't in before I read that email.

Am I over-reacting here? I'm not going to ask if I was right for modifying the articles, as I am a firm believer in karma and want as much good coming my way as possible... but am I wrong for first getting upset about this and - post change - having regrets? I feel like I took a step backwards today...