Support Aaron Wall
All of the popular internet marketing blogs are talking about Traffic Power’s pending lawsuit of Aaron Wall, owner and operator of SEO Book, an internet marketing blog. Traffic Power is alleging that Aaron Wall is guilty of publishing (or allowing others to publish) defamatory information and Traffic Power trade secrets on his website. This case is reaching beyond the internet marketing community because of the implications - if Aaron is found guilty based on user’s comments in his forum the web will no longer be a sanctuary for free speech. If this happens you can expect a significant number of sites to disallow user comments - a disservice to frustrated web searchers looking for fresh content.
Aaron Wall is a very bright 25-year-old that has published a book on internet marketing, runs his popular blog and helps clients implement their internet marketing strategy. I have been a reader of his blog for some time now and I don’t think Traffic Power has a leg to stand on. Here are my reasons:
1) I’m not a lawyer, but I believe that in order to be guilty of publishing trade secrets, one must have some kind of inside information that is not readily available to the public. The majority of the comments posted on his blog focus on Traffic Power’s questionable telemarketing tactics, like calling at 5 in the morning - if this is a trade secret, it’s not a very good one. Other comments talk about Traffic Power’s black hat approach to SEO including things like doorway pages and link farms. I have been contacted by Traffic Power several times and they are very open about using these tactics - again, doesn’t smell like a trade secret.
2) Aaron Wall’s forum is truly open - there are quite a few comments that are pro-Traffic Power that he has not edited out (my guess is that these are Traffic Power employees - I have never spoken with a person that has been remotely pleased with their services). His goal is to create an atmosphere where internet marketers can exchange ideas and experiences that they have had - the fact that \he vast majority of the comments are negative is a reflection of how Traffic Power chooses to do business, not some conspiracy of SEO’s determined to put them out of business. It is a fact that all of Traffic Power’s clients were blacklisted from Google and that the Better Business Bureau has received numerous complaints from former customers.
3) I don’t think that Aaron should be held legally responsible for opinions made on his blog, though I do agree that webmasters need to moderate their forums. For instance, if somebody posts information that teaches readers how to make crystal meth, obviously Aaron would remove this comment because it provides information that is illegal to distribute. This is just a necessary evil of owning a website with a lot of user-generated content. In exchange for great (free) content, the webmaster must filter out some of the content. In SEO Book’s case, however, I do not feel that Aaron Wall should have removed the comments concerning Traffic Power. As I mentioned earlier, I do not believe that the comments posted on the website are consistent with Traffic Power’s claims of “defamatory comments” or “trade secrets.” The comments were opinions from people who had bad experiences with Traffic Power.
If you are interested in supporting Aaron Wall, you can make a donation directly to him. He has promised that any donations exceeding his court expenses will be donated to EFF or Public Citizen. At the very least leave a comment and let Aaron know that you support him.
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I’m glad that Aaron’s fighting those guys. I don’t have much money but I am interested in learning more about SEO so I bought his book to help out the cause
Comment by mike — September 4, 2005 @ 10:27 pm
[…] You probably recall my post about Traffic Power suing Aaron Wall for defamation and publishing trade secrets. The lawsuit is completely bogus and totally threatens freedom of speech on the web. Purchasing his book will help him protect our rights online and put a very shady company in their place. […]
Pingback by The Preston Blog » SEOBook - a great tutorial for beginner or intermediate SEO’s — October 17, 2005 @ 8:53 pm