Black Friday advertisement flyers from Wal-Mart have hit the web early after a leak and Wal-Mart is not only going after the sites that have posted the Black Friday specials, but also the search engines which are indexing or linking to them. Wal-mart’s legal team is targeting sites that have posted the content, claiming a copyright on the content, but now the company is going a step further.
Wal-Mart has issued a takedown notice to SearchAllDeals.com, a search engine and publisher of coupons and other discounts, has received a DMCA takedown notice to SearchAllDeals, which does not even host the content Wal-Mart is claiming breaks copyright law.
According to TechDirt, the takedown notice is bogus as prices cannot be copyrighted, and is a simple scare tactic. This news of course led to SearchAllDeals.com actually posting the notice for our web viewing pleasure.
One would think in a retail market which is incredibly underperforming, the buzz from the Wal-Mart Black Friday ads would lead to more sales at Wal-Mart the day after Thanksgiving. By legally going after the sites that are spreading the buzz about the Wal-Mart specials on big screen TV’s and other deals, Wal-Mart is showing that they do not only understand Internet marketing, but also don’t get viral buzz and social media. Smooth move Wal-Mart.
