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Murry Gunty is trying to keep me quiet about his past
i received the email below from six apart yesterday, asking me to 'edit out' murry's last name as it invaded his privacy. (murry is the kid who was caught cheating in a school election at harvard business school). what's amazing is that murry's story made the wall street journal and he himself wrote a letter in the school paper apologizing to his parents.
this brings up a number of questions.
1. can anyone tell me what the privacy laws are around something like this? do you have a legal right to stop someone from publishing a story around your name after it has been in a large public paper?
2. should any of us be trusting our blogging fate to six apart when the company is so willing to bend to any outside request and try to force us to change our blogs?
3. i wish that murry could take a more positive approach to all this, comment on my blog, talk about all you've done to overcome, how you've found an ethical path.
Six Apart (Six Apart) said: 07/27/2006 01:39 PM Dear Mr. Pincus,
I apologize for the need to contact you. I've recently been notified that one of your blog posts contains a small violation of TypePad's Terms of Service. The blog post located at http://markpincus.typepad.com/markpincus/2006/01/10000_words_on_.html contains the name "Murry Gunty." Unfortunately, because of the combined information in your post, this together with the rest of the post is enough to be considered an invasion of Mr. Gunty's privacy.
There's no need to remove the post; it just needs to be slightly edited. If you could please remove Mr. Gunty's last name, then it would no longer be enough information to be considered invasive of his privacy. I would very much appreciate if you could edit out his last name in the next 48 hours.
July 28, 2006 | Permalink
Comments
He says you can't mention his name in a blog post ? You certainly have the right to talk about someone like this, but it looks like they are trying to say thier TOS says you can't on thier site.
On our merchant reviews, we have customers commenting about merchants all the time so I think this is more about a TOS issue than a legal constraint.
Interesting from a blogging platform.
Posted by: Ben | Jul 28, 2006 12:32:57 PM
i am not a lawyer, but from a film maker perspective i can tell you that once a person becomes a "public figure" then they are deemed as "public domain". for example, if you wanted to include a presidential speech in a documentay, you do not have to clear it because it has been broadcast by the media and is a public domain property. you have every right to blog about a public figure. being the fact that he was a media stalemate for what he did, he is therefore a "public figure". if he is trying to shut you down, then he should go after every media entity that covered this story. in my opinion, he has no case.
Posted by: brad | Jul 28, 2006 3:11:48 PM
It's not libel because Murry has admitted to it. It's BS that they ask you to edit his last name out of the post. Or they'll delete it? What is this China?
Posted by: Raj Bala | Jul 28, 2006 3:36:41 PM
Oh, by the way --- you should create a Wikipedia page for Mr. Gunty.
Posted by: Raj Bala | Jul 28, 2006 3:42:58 PM
Regardless of the guy's own ethical behavior, I don't think any value was added to the original post by using his name.
Posted by: Andrew Fife | Jul 29, 2006 2:24:31 AM
Excellent post Mark; I'm on your side on this one and here's what I wrote about it:
http://fuzzyblog.com/archives/2006/07/29/how-does-blogging-not-violate-privacy/
Sidebar: If you have any interest in moving your blogging over to Wordpress on your own domain so there are no TOS issues then email me; I'd love to help you with that.
Posted by: Scott Johnson of FuzzyBlog, Ookles | Jul 29, 2006 5:10:59 AM
Time for you to move weblogging hosts. I can't understand why anyone would stay hosted on Typepad after such a request as this.
Posted by: Shelley | Jul 29, 2006 5:44:56 AM
Besides, a quick 30 seconds on Google found writings such as the following:
http://www.dennerlaw.com/pages/crimson.html
Posted by: Shelley | Jul 29, 2006 5:51:22 AM
And this:
http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=225241
Posted by: Shelley | Jul 29, 2006 5:55:28 AM
To put this situation mildly, this request is ridiculous. The fact that they would even email you at all on a TOS violation is ridiculous. You should have every right to post whatever you want, even if it happens to be libelous - which I personally don't think it is in this case. As much as I respect the Movable Type team and their supporters (particularly Andrew Fife in these comments), this is your blog and you should be able to say whatever you want on it. Aside from the fact that MT shouldn't be in the content business in the first place, the namby-pamby recommendation for "fixing" the issue seems childish and ineffective to the point that it shouldn't be suggested at all.
Posted by: Marc Nathan | Jul 29, 2006 7:56:39 PM
Murry Gunty now has an entry on Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murry_Gunty
Posted by: Wikipedia | Jul 30, 2006 2:07:23 PM
I agree with Brad above, concerning the subject of being a "public figure." There is no concrete legal definition for this, by the way, but is decided on a relative basis: that if a person is THIS well-known already, they should expect that complete strangers have the right to talk about them THIS way. If this guy has already been named in a major paper publication, I believe he has the right to be considered a "public figure" when mentioned at someone's personal blog. Outed on national television? Maybe not. His tax records published at the Smoking Gun? Definitely not. But mentioned at a personal blog, for something a newspaper already mentioned? Sure, I definitely think you're in the right here. Just my two cents, anyway.
Posted by: Jason Pettus | Aug 3, 2006 10:45:02 AM
If SixApart wants to be start telling what you can and can't write about or say then they're opening up a pandora's box as it means that they will be helpd responsible for anything written by any blogger on their platform, rather than to be considered a common carrier. Perhaps that the case already which is why they address this in their TOS, but it's a bad precedent for them to embark on.
Posted by: P-Air | Aug 4, 2006 12:47:04 AM
A pandora's box indeed. What would they say about someone posting a google search url that reveals the same information they wanted to censor? Its a losing battle and thankfully it is getting easier to expose liars in the Internet era.
Posted by: PeekYou | Aug 9, 2006 11:26:13 AM
It kills me that this has all exploded because Murry Gunty doesn't like that these blogs show up on Google.
Here's a clue, MURRY GUNTY: If you don't want people talking negatively about you, then stop being the greedy, selfish, self-absorbed tyrant that you are. And you ARE a liar and cheater. You lied and cheated at HBS and at numerous workplaces, including Milestone Captial Management. The world is a small place, especially Washington, DC. YOu should think next time you decide to screw someone.
Posted by: Mike P. | Aug 16, 2006 11:31:45 AM
It looks like Murry Gunty has tried to manage and control by intimiation again. He's bullying Six Apart just like he does every other client, employee, vendor, etc. Interestingly, Murry Gunty is a control freak, and this is just one thing he can't control. Mark, find another host and start an entire blog about the infamous Murry Gunty. You'll be shocked to see how many lives he's ruined.
Posted by: Mike P. | Aug 16, 2006 11:38:45 AM
First, people that have extremely long URLs, please submit them to some sort of a minimizer like TinyURL.com. I went to Andrew Fife's blog (I copied and pasted the URL in Firefox on Linux), and I had to totally flush the cache to get this blog readable again. His URL after minimizing is:
http://tinyurl.com/ev5m7
Isn't that better? If you are concerned about the site, I am a Computer and Network Security Analyst and can give TinyURL.com a clean bill of health. Unlike the hundreds of stats.surfaid.ihost.com, s20.sitemeter.com, ad.doubleclick.net, etc. that I have been blocking while researching this (due to an online article by the Washington Post) story, I would have to say that TinyURL are spotlessly clean. The price you pay to use them is they keep the URLs that are given to them. Here is the Washington Post article:
http://tinyurl.com/nmldx
Second, let me know if your blogging company changes, and it SHOULD change. The company should be ashen-faced about even making the request in the first place. That isn't the only reason for the requested change. Make your next blog space like FuzzyBlog where things are easier to read.
I find the story fascinating, your current blog situation deplorable, and I hope some people understand just how big the Internet is. If the Wall Street Journal continues to shun the Internet they will most likely be marginalized out of existence. No media presence can be so insular as to ignore the Internet forever. After all, that is what the Internet is - new media distribution channels. The Washington Post and the New York Times have made a big net presence and although we don't know where things are headed yet, they will be able to adjust and move in the correct direction. There is no substitute for learning from your mistakes and making adjustments and being first. The Wall Street Journal needs to understand that the world is changing and they are increasingly becoming dinosaurs of a long ago era. Maybe Murry Gunty's mistake was that the Wall Street Journal was all he was reading. Don't quote me on that people. I don't know Murry Gunty and I do NOT know what he reads. I do think the Wall Street Journal is making a mistake. Only time will show which of us is wrong. Take a snap shot of how things are now and come back and look at it in ten years and see how things have changed. If the Wall Street Journal's readership is the same as it is now or has kept pace with the increase in population, then I will be wrong.
I think the Washington Post article did a good job of covering the story. Whether people like it or not the Internet is here to stay. Unlike more conventional media, blogging is still open to outright lies and fabrications or even worse, quotations and re-quotations of mistruths that are not even known as such. So please do one thing and do it well - get your facts straight! Whether people like it or not, the Google search engine is the new Library card catalog. Unfortunately, that new library is much less reliable than the old one. But it also frequently results in the information you need much quicker. Hopefully (thinking of the movie Desk Set), the information is correct.
I think Murry Gunty should be happy about one thing - he has 12,300 hits at Google right now. I have been trying to get some and I don't even have one fourth of that! Either the truth is he made a mistake and has learned from it or he has not learned anything and is still a scoundrel. I encourage those in the know (which is NOT me) to let us know the truth, or at least their tiny pieces of it. After all, that is called freedom of speech, and without it you don't have a free society, and THAT IS WHAT THIS IS ALL ABOUT! I leave it to the legal types to advise on just how far a TOS can trump an amendment to the Constitution of the United States. If the TOS at your current blog home is too restrictive, then just move some place else. Be sure you learn from the established media to get things correct, er, accurate.
I am not now, nor have I ever been affiliated with TinyURL.com in any way. If you choose to use another URL minimizer you are free to do so, and please do so.
Posted by: Henry Hertz Hobbit | Oct 3, 2006 6:48:08 PM
Murry and his wife Lisa Gunty are still climbers as they've always been. You can see it in the people they selectively choose to entertain and ingratiate themselves to -- all very calculated, as is his pumpkin carving party which probably gets deducted. Thanks uncle sam.
Posted by: CR | Nov 6, 2006 1:57:03 PM
My name is Mark Pincus too. Weird
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