tecznotes

Jonah Peretti, interviewed by Stay Free:

STAY FREE!: The one site from your students that sticks with me most is WhatIsVictoriasSecret.com.

PERETTI: Yeah, it's number two when you search for Victoria's Secret on Google.

SF!: I love that Victoria's Secret couldn't go after them.

P: But they did—

SF!: The lawyer told them to take down the direct links to the real Victoria's Secret site to make sure they didn't confuse users, right?

P: Yes, but initially they called and said to take the site down immediately. A guy who worked on the site got the call and took it down, but the women working with him put it back up. The Victoria's Secret lawyer called back begging, "Could you go after Calvin Klein or Frederick's of Hollywood instead?" But when they asked the lawyer to send a cease-and-desist, she refused to put anything in writing: "I don't want that showing up on the web." She didn't want the story to be about Victoria's Secret trying to shut down a site that girls created about body image. The site had already gotten some press and they didn't want it to get more.

Who's feeling the chilling effect now?