Ask HN: Abusive-seeming legal threat from Semalt

I think Semalt sent the same letter to anyone who has mentioned their wrongdoing or how to block it... I think most of them do not even want to bother or any trouble with the company. Simply delete the article because it was like big topic in 2014. Now because of GDPR, they are trying to abuse it and cover all of their shits.... i don't even wanna bother with them.. I just deleted the article..

I received the same exact message from Semalt about an article I wrote back in 2014. I'm pretty sure this is a scare tactic since I can't find any reason for them to "start legal proceedings", and the letter they sent is clearly copy and pasted since one of the field wasn't updated from the last person they messaged. Also, they have no reason to mention GDPR – it has nothing to do with this situation.

Just in case, I contacted a lawyer – I'll fight it if it goes further since I don't appreciate being bullied by a company like this, and nothing I said was false.

I also received a very similar letter in an email. I had an article on my site from several years ago about how to block referral spam, and Semalt was one of the sites I listed. I've deleted the article but did not reply to the email.

I feel a bit bad that I deleted the article as everything in it was truthful and helpful to people looking for that info. However, I don't want to get into a legal fight (although that's probably unlikely).

The only thing I can think of that I could possibly be in trouble for legally is that I called these sites referrer spam and ghost spam. However, so have a thousand other sites and what they did really seems to fit the definition of that exactly.

I read online that these sort of letters are supposed to be delivered by mail, not electronically. Additionally, I wonder about the statute of limitations is on this.

Anybody have any free, anonymous legal advice?

I know several blogs and sites who have written about the semalt referral spam back in 2014 that have gotten legal threats against them.

The letters claim trademark infringement. They own no trademark in the USA, and there is one in pending status in their own country. Would claiming you own a trademark (yet you don't officially own one yet) be an issue?

If you've written about how to block Semalt referrer spam, you're just informing your readers about how to block referral spam (the domain doesn't really matter). So that falls under fair use.

We also recieved this letter from Semalt concerning a blog-article about referral spam.

We contacted our lawyer and he said that the reasons mentioned in the letter are rubbish. Our blog-article doesn't concern any trademark-violations and it certainly has nothing to do with GDPR.

The only critical point might be, if we said something wrong about them. But we have the facts and there are lots of other sites that say the same thing. So we won't delete or edit our article and we'll see if they really go to court and risk losing.

I hope some of you will do the same - that will make it easier for all of us!

I've had exactly the same thing today in my spam box. I didn't open the attachment, but I assume it's regarding a negative article I wrote.

Everything I wrote was the truth, and I can back up everything I said, so I'm not concerned.

I received this letter for my web site too, for an article that was published before I bought the site. Since I didn't write the article and couldn't even say if it was true or not, I just deleted it to avoid a possible fight. However, I do believe that their claims have no teeth and it is just a scare tactic. I emailed them back at their generic company address because they didn't even leave a reply-to address in the contact form.

Yes I received the same letter. I did a review on Semalt on my website sharing my opinion which was not very flattering. Their letter said they are going to sue me for damages from 2014 until now.... however I didn't even have my domain purchased until 2015 and the review was obviously written even later than that. I removed my review from my website because I don't want any drama but I ignored their letter. They then sent the same letter to my domain registrar and they emailed me.

A legal letter should be very precise but their letter could not even get their dates right. On top of that it says to Sir/ Madam when my full name is clearly shown on my website. I can't take that seriously. They cannot even take the time to write my name?

I've been contacted too. I'm not planning on removing my article either. It feels like a bluff. I find it odd that their first course of action is to threaten legal action. Not exactly the way to win friends and influence people. If they really wanted to get on the right side of this they would acknowledge what they did and then approach people with an apology. Meh.

Same here, we have one of the most authoritative blog posts on the topic of referral spam and it, of course, mentions semalt who were one of the first to use this tactic of "promotion" of their service:

http://blog.analytics-toolkit.com/2015/guide-referrer-spam-g...

We got the same letters, sent to our ISP, instead of us, and we are a legal entity, easy to identify and contact in multiple ways. Legalese is shit, of course, we will stand our ground for sure. Unfortunately, due to procedures by our ISP we might need to temporarily remove a part of the content until the issue is resolved.

Same here. I think it's fair use, It's public service to fight spam. I don't think a judge will side with their argument that we're trying to take advantage of their great reputation :-).

Just like with any claim troll without merits, the best course of action is to ignore them.