Business Ethics and Why I'm Pissed

I run a small denominational specific Christian dating service. I've been doing this for a year and it's been very successful. It's been a lot more successful then I ever would have dreamed. I'm to the point now, where my site is #1 on google for this denomination search.

As you might expect whenever there's something successful there's copycatters. I don't mind having competition. But there are some things I won't tolerate.

A new competitor showed up maybe a month back. This guy is a real piece of work. He got his church pastor to endorse his site. Which is all fine and good. But then my pastor forwarded me a letter, from this guy's pastor and his pastor is going on about how he has great morals and all that.

Yet a week before that, this jerk joins my site and purchases a membership. Then begins sending messages to my members, advertising his website. He basically joined and purchased a membership with the sole intention to spam my members and try to steal them away.

I thought to myself after reading that letter from his pastor, oh yeah this guy sure has upstanding moral principals.

I was really ticked off. Then I came across his Paid Per Click advertisment. This guy is running my other direct competitors site name as his headline. Basically just a way to confuse people into going to the wrong site. This is intolerable. If my other direct competitor had his site name trademarked, this guy would be in a lot of trouble.

I'm pretty pissed about the whole situation. There are some things you don't do in business because it goes against good ethics. Yet this guy finds it morally fine to use another companies name as his PPC headline to confuse people. Then he also thinks it's ok to signup for a competitors site to use it as a way to get subscribers to his.

I wish I knew how to handle this. It happened again but I'm not sure if it was him or just someone else. This time around I made copies of the messages they sent, copy of IP and and that. I made sure and get the evidence needed so if I ever need to file suit I'll have proof.

The thing that really burns me up, is the fact that I now have to search my Mysql, once a day to make sure he's not signed up under a different name. Although I did block the IP address his account showed the first time. I hope it was broadband so it'll permantly block him from that computer.

Well anyway, I thought I'd share that.

 

very strange hearing someone talk about business ethics and the internet...

has this impacted your business that much?

 

I believe (though I haven't had need to try it) that a formal legally worded cease and desist letter can be effective.

T

 

ring his pastor and tell him what's going on. put something in your ToS that prohibits spamming your members for commercial reasons, call the guy and tell him he's a creep.

you can bitch and moan, or you can do something...

 

Does the church this guy goes to have a website? Personally I would send him and the pastor and the webmaster an open letter telling him that in the TRUE ethics of Christianity you would like to forgive this guy for his obvious sins listed below. I would request that his church pray for him to receive the guidence he needs to help him run his business ethically and with good intent. Explain that God has blessed you and the people of your site with success and hapiness, but that you fear this might be undone because of the sins this guy has committed, you pray however that it does not happen, and that you can both co-exist to bring glory to God by being honest and ethical.

I would also circulate a newsletter to all your members asking them to pray for the misguided person (don't name him, giving him free advertising though).

You will have done the right thing, and when all said and done we can only lead by example.

 

Hmmm.

If you remove the word 'Christianity' from this whole scenario, there's nothing particularly unethical or wrong with what this guy has been doing. He's simply trying to grab some of your customer base. I can't say I agree with or condone his methods but for some people, that's acceptable practice.

Is it ethical to sign up to a site and spam the members? No. I don't agree with it, however, was there a specific clause in the agreement forbidding it? It seems not. The practice may seem underhanded but it's not illegal nor was it against the terms of use.

Advertising using a competitors name. Not nice but hardly a new tactic in commerce. People do similar things all the time, for example, when people register typo domain names to try to grab traffic, e.g. goggle.com. To me, a smart move on the part of whoever grabbed that domain and then resold it for a tidy sum.

It really is up to the competitor to deal with such uses of their name on Adwords. I'm sure a screenshot and an email would help towards this effect.

It seems to me that this guy got under your skin because of the Christianity aspect. You don't feel he treated you with good 'Christian' ethics and values. As you know, however, ethics and values change from church to church. What's considered normal in one may be considered an affront in another.

Did you email the guy himself to ask him what he was playing at and why he was doing the things he was? Maybe that's the place to begin? He might not know his behaviour is upsetting you. Perhaps he was a used-car salesman before he found God and he's resorting to old habits? Who knows?

I do have one suggestion and it's this: don't allow mass emailings or PM's on your site. There should be a limit if there isn't already. No point making it easy.

 

The only thing wrong here is using a competitor's name in advertising because it is potential violating a trademark.

As to messaging your users, so what. At least in America, we have freedom of speech. I can go into a McDonald's and talk to people about how great Burger King is.

The only potential thing here is harassment. He is "technically" harassing your customers who are engaging in an activity. However, if your members don't pursue the matter, it is dead in the water.

Modify your ToS to include something like:

Sending messages to other members which are commercial in nature is not allowed. By doing so, you will be charged $5 per message for advertising on our private network.

You can go more into detail, but that is the basic idea. Also, you MUST alert all your users of this change in plain view. In other words, drop a message to each one AND link to it in plain view. Next time he does it, tally the messages, multiply by your reasonable fee and email him a professional invoice.

Give him 30 days to pay. If he does not pay, proceed as desired.

I would refrain from talking to his pastor about this matter in a negative light because you are now discussing his business with a 3rd party and whatever you say could be considered slander (if spoken) or liable (if written).

Remember, Christians aren't perfect (or anywhere near so), just forgiven.

What would Jesus do? Well, I doubt he would be running a dating site first of all. If he was, he would probably run his business the best he could and let the wickedness of others be their own downfall.

 

I knew of a case where one church pastor actively requested that its members prayed for the failure of a business from another church. Talk about screwed up belief

There is a saying and it goes 'kill em all and let God sort them out'

The concern is, are you wishing ill on this other person? if the answer is yes, then I suggest you read Luke 6:41-42

Oh dear I have gone all religious lol.

 

I would think a true "Christian" would:

1. Pray to God and ask for help.
2. Pray to God and ask that the other party sees the error in their ways.
3. Forgive other party.
4. Run their business as good as they can, which in this case includes modifying ToS or website.

You would have to ask yourself, do you care about what this other party is doing because you don't want to see them get into trouble and as a Christian you truly care about your fellow man or is it because they might take away from your pile of materialistic stuff?

 

Now that was what I was trying to say.. which is why I don't write copy

 

No, I keep a close eye on what's going on on the site. So I was able to stop the messages from being sent after about 20 or so. Then I deleted the remaining ones before many members could view them. It could have been drastic. I estimate each subscriber has a value of $27.00. This estimate comes from a year's worth of transaction averages, where when added all up and averaged. The average transaction amount is $27.00.

So if the guy wants to, pay me $27.00 dollars per message to be sent. I'd be more then willing to allow him to send his messages.

 

Having a clause in the terms and conditions wouldn't necessarily prevent the incident from happening. Because the guys ovious intentions wasn't to be a member of the site but to send messages advertising his site.

I've updated the terms and conditions. But I don't know how this will help me. It's like with any law or rule. The people who are obeyers, will obey it. But the others with specific intentions will disregard it anyway. So about the only thing it does is create reprecussions for wrongful behavior.

 

Have you actually contacted the person in question to convey your feelings on the matter?