Ian Corbett and Toyota Ireland – Retraction Of Comments
Posted: Thu 8 September, 2011 Filed under: 1BEM, Customer Services, Cynicism, D4D™, People, Stupidity, Sweary, Toyota IE 7 Comments »Following a request from his legal advisers, I am retracting these comments forthwith, and have deleted the original post(s) to reflect this. I apologise for any harm caused.
(This retraction has been approved by Gore Grimes Solicitors. My personal view hasn’t changed, but legal stuff prevails over personal opinion, it seems. Maybe next time he’ll remember about BCC, and privacy concerns resulting therefrom)
Given the *huge* problems that Toyota have had worldwide over recent years with issues such as quality, reliability etc etc, I would have hoped that their Marketing Manager would have had better things to do with his time than chase small-scale bloggers who express a personal opinion on their personal website.
Perhaps he has been trying to find a new job (and who wouldn’t if they had to try to market a brand with such a poor reputation!) and has found that potential new employers check the web to learn of his ‘achievements’?
I’d never buy a Toyota.
I’m assuming he’s also going to sue the person who owns the domain of his name.
I had wondered the same, with regard to job-hunting etc., though.
I was thinking earlier – this is a perfect demonstration of how times change… thinking back to the Dummies debacle (seven or eight years ago?) – how many bloggers linked and supported that?
Now I’m the only one of your many readers who even can be bothered/dares to express an opinion here. Apathy and/or concern about the potential legal ramifications rule.
Blogging/the internet ain’t what it was. Mind you, I think it pertains to the whole of society actually.
Yeah, I was thinking about very similar things regarding now vs. Wiley et al all those years ago. (July 2003, if you’re interested)
I mean, I understand that it’s because of something I said – allbeit as a personal opinion – but now people seem happier to protest on Twitter etc. about big companies being stupid (Top Man T-shirts, f’rexample) than a legal piece of garbage insisting on retraction of that personal opinion. I still dispute that it was (as they said) “Untrue and malicious”, but there we go, what can you do?
I’ve had three cases of being asked to remove something in 8.5 years. Each time I’ve stood my ground and haven’t (there was nothing that was untrue or which could have been counted as libel in any of it). All the complainants disappeared back into the undergrowth.
But, to be fair, I’ve not had a legal bod after me, and, had I, I may have felt differently as The Law Is An Ass and not knowing the system as well as One of its Leeches can cost one money.
But, although I’m sure I am just as opinionated as you, perhaps I tend to be slightly less sweary, and rather more fond of use of (unchallengable) phrases such as ‘in my opinion’ ‘I believe’ ‘this seems to me’ etc (years of professional report writing, some of it for legal cases, have helped here) 😉
I don’t Twitter, as you know. It’s too transient and vacuous a medium to interest me. Plus, I don’t have time for babble and I don’t do small talk in written form. If I had hours to pass on public transport every day, I may feel differently though.
What ever happened to truth, honesty and reputation? The world of “Sue, Grabbit & Run” alive and well then?