October 14, 2007 / by emptywheel

 

Dick DeVos and KayBee Hutchison Go After Bloggers

That’s a way to make you feel good about blogging, huh? To be attacked by both Dick DeVos and KayBee Hutchison?

DeVos is suing 30 anonymous bloggers and YouTube users because he believes they are among a group for former distributors who sued Amway and were put under a gag order by the judge in the suit.

In the lawsuit filed this past week in Ottawa County Circuit Court,Quixtar seeks an injunction and damages of more than $25,000 againstthe posters, identified only as John Does.

[snip]

Quixtar believes the videos and other postings are part of anorganized effort by former distributors who unsuccessfully sued Alticorand are under court order not to disparage the company or discloseproprietary information, according to the lawsuit.

Quixtar plans to ask for permission to subpoena various onlinecompanies to figure out who posted the materials, spokesman Rob Zeigersaid.

According to the Grand Rapids Press, an Alticor representative saidthe court action was merely to identify anyone who might be associatingwith those under court order, rather than expressing their own personalopinions.

Zeiger told the paper that his company was not interested inpursuing people not associated with the former employees, and wouldeven reimburse their legal fees if there was no connection. "Anindividual who is expressing their own opinion, we don’t have a problemwith that," he said. "They’re not doing anything wrong."

I thought at first this might be an attempt to neutralize the power of anti-DeVos blogs, which had been really effective against him in the last governor’s election in MI. I need to see the complaint here, because I’m not sure the allegations made in the YouTubes actually relate to the failed lawsuit against Amway. So DeVos risks amplifying the blog material which appears like it may be factually correct: that is, that Amway’s online division Quixtar, sucks. (Full disclosure, I have a family member who was a Quixtar believer before he became a Southern Baptist.) That’d be nice, huh? If in pursuit of a bunch of people who tried to bust the pyramid scheme, DeVos actually informed more people that Amway is a big hoax?

KayBee Hutchison, for her part, is complaining about bloggersbecause–wait for it–they don’t follow the esteemed principles ofjournalistic ethics.

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Originally Posted @ https://www.emptywheel.net/2007/10/14/dick-devos-and-kaybee-hutchison-go-after-bloggers/