legal stuff and mid-life crises

On the matter of Crocs, Inc. being a bunch of douches, we recently received an email from "Vincent Vin", who had this to say:

I saw your post at LittleRubberShoes.com and your mention that you feared that Crocs might try to force IHateCrocs.com offline. But in truth, CrocFans.com and your web site are both protected free speech and fair journalistic use of their tradename in the respective domain names. There are a zillion web sites that use Apple and Mac in the domain name and it's not an infringement. Free speech is protected whenever a web site such as MacWorld.com, Apple-Expo.com or MicrosoftReallySucks.com (hypothetical) says whatever they want, so long as it is about facts and opinions and such things as fan comments or negative comments. You CAN legally use a tradename in your domain name so long as you are not pretending to be Crocs or whoever. There is a lot of precedent in matters like this and it was naive of CrocFans.com to cave in out of needless fear. The worst they can get is an injunction to take the domain and that's only if the judge is a total ass. If they go around suing for actual cash damages, they would probably lose and they would cultivate their own bad PR. I personally was interested in Crocs shoes as a vegetarian after seeing a NY Times article but now I would be inclined to decline such a product because the company has no sense of ethics much less a sense of what is legal.

My email to Crocks:
"You have a lot of nerve to be sending cease and desist letters in order to STEAL legitimate fair usage web domain CrocFans.com. And you have no legal ground to stand on except that you have successfully bluffed. I'm going to give you as much bad blog as I can, boycott you forever and use my vegetarian web sites to promote boycott.
- Take your Boss Tweed attitude and go to hell!"

I, for one, hope that Vincent Vin is right. Don't let them take you out, Croc Fans Dot Com! Resist!

Here's an email from Cathy that sounds ridiculous with the possibility of being completed fabricated and unfortunate if not:

Just saw your site and had to add my experience.

Approaching his 60th birthday my husband spied a pair of (urgh) crocs in a local shop in Brighton. Making a beeline for a horrible pair in vomit green he tried them on with a gleeful look like a little boy in his first wellies. How do they look he asked me. Behind my pasted on smile I was screaming silently ARE YOU MAD!!. But against my better judgement I just nodded and they were bought. Three days later he returned from a secret forage for MORE crocs – this time a violent shade of blue and I knew he was lost.

One month later and after 32 years of marriage he declared he needed to go to Thailand to `find himself`. That was 9 months ago and for all I know his horrible revolting crocs are frightening children all over Thailand.

I wonder – are these crocs impregnated with some chemical that activates the latent stupid berk gene in men? All thoughts appreciated.

Let the war continue…

Terrible!

As an aside, I have once again changed Vincenzo Ravina Dot Com. I decided to go old school internet this time, sparse with text and blue links.

Also: the first person to send in a photograph of themselves wearing one of our t-shirts will get something awesome mailed to them. Email your pictures to ihatecrocs@gmail.com.

Also: we were featured on the Unofficial Podcast. I guess this guys makes podcasts for blogs, pretending to be the writer. I'm not sure why he gave us the accent he did, as we are from Atlantic Canada, but whatever.

Our friends over at Croc Fans Dot Com have hit upon legal trouble

Hello, everyone.

You may already know that we here at I Hate Crocs Dot Com like to poke fun at our friends over at Croc Fans Dot Com from time to time. Well, they've hit upon legal trouble and are now located at Little Rubber Shoes Dot Com. Why the domain name change? Because our enemies at Crocs, Inc. have sent them a cease-and-desist and demanded that they transfer the domain name over to them. Yes, they shut down one of their biggest supporters. That's how stupid Crocs, Inc. is.

This, of course, disgusts me. Should I be happy that the antithesis of this site has been taken down a notch? Some of you might think so, but I'm not. I don't much like it. No sir. We don't take kindly to bullying. Anyway, if you liked to visit Croc Fans Dot Com, change your bookmarks now. We wish our friends at Little Rubber Shoes Dot Com lots of luck.

We haven't received a letter from Crocs, Inc. but it could happen any day now.

The post from Little Rubber Shoes Dot Com explaining all of this in greater detail is as follows:

On July 19, 2007, Crocs, Inc. sent a cease and desist letter to our web hosting company which demanded that that they immediately provide the contact information for the registrant of CrocFans.com (me) or immediately transfer the registration of CrocFans.com to Crocs, Inc. If these demands were not agreed to by July 26, 2007, Crocs, Inc. may “pursue all available remedies” including “injunctive relief”.

This letter caused our hosting company BlueHost.com to temporarily suspend our account without any notice to us on July 25th. After speaking with BlueHost.com I was able to get the site back up and live after about 15 hours of being down. At that time I learned of the letter sent to BlueHost.com regarding the CrocFans.com domain and Crocs “demanding” of the ownership transfer of the domain.

I thought why would Crocs, Inc. have a problem with a fan site devoted to their products, brand, and the people who love their products? My initial thought was that this has to be some sort of mistake. After reading the cease and desist letter I noticed that the letter stated that CrocFans.com was being used to “operate a website to sell shoes that are very similar to those sold by Crocs, Inc.”

Well, as many of you know, we have never sold any products on CrocFans.com so I thought that I would pro-actively contact the Crocs, Inc. attorney who sent the letter to my hosting company to clarify this fact.

After leaving a voice mail with the attorney and an initial email helping clarify what the site was and that it did not sell competing products to Crocs the attorney acknowledged that CrocFans.com does not sell Crocs products or products similar to those sold by Crocs.

BUT… went on to say that the use of the Crocs trademark in the domain (CrocFans.com) “could be confusing to consumers as to whether the site is sponsored by, endorsed by, or affiliated with Crocs, Inc.” Although they did not demand that we discontinue the content of CrocFans.com and that I was free to continue running the website under a different domain name, they still demanded that I transfer the domain name CrocFans.com over to Crocs, Inc.

Being a diplomatic person, I thought I would show my good faith with the Crocs organization and offered to transfer the domain CrocFans.com over to Crocs, Inc. after what I felt was enough time to do the necessary work to transfer a well established website domain to a brand new domain. After spending 2 years in growing the CrocFans.com website into what it is today with the tens of thousands of visitors to the site every month I offered to transfer the domain by January 1, 2008.

Anyone who has had to move an established website over to a different domain knows this is not something that you can do overnight without loosing all of your traffic. There are many steps necessary to ensure all of the work and effort already put into the site can be saved and transferred over to the new domain. I felt 5 months was the least amount of time it would take to do this transfer given the 2 years it took to build the site.

After sending my offer via email to the Crocs attorney, I felt certain Crocs, Inc. would be understanding and accepting of my offer. CrocFans.com has been one of (if not the biggest) online supporter of their shoes and brand for the last 2 years. We’ve held Crocs contests for people to show their love for Crocs (I paid for the winner’s prize with my own money) and been interviewed supporting Crocs in a New York Times article. I thought this was a fair compromise.

I guess was wrong…

The Crocs, Inc. attorney informed me that Crocs, Inc. was willing to give me 30 days (until September 5, 2007) to complete the transfer of ownership of CrocFans.com to Crocs, Inc.

I have responded by respectfully declining their offer to transfer CrocFans.com over to Crocs, Inc. by September 5, 2007.

Needless to say the whole situation has left a bad taste in my mouth especially since I have spent a significant amount of time creating a site that supports, promotes, and helps further the Crocs brand to a worldly audience. Although I still like the shoes, I am not as impressed with the company and their management of this situation.

So, where does that leave us today?

I have started moving the website over to the new domain LittleRubberShoes.com. You may have noticed this at the top. Before I get a bunch of emails stating that Crocs are not made of rubber, I know, but that was the best I could come up with. If you have better ideas for the new domain please add them in the comments below.

I am working toward fully transferring the site from CrocFans.com to LittleRubberShoes.com by January 1, 2008. It is my hope to have the same amount of traffic to the site by the first of the year as what we were seeing before we made this change.

Undoubtedly, our traffic will take a short-term dip because of this move, but over time we should be back to where we were before. I’ve already seen a dip today where we previously were on the first page of search results on Google for “Crocs”, now I don’t see the site in the first 3 pages.

We need your help. Please update your bookmarks, link to our new site, subscribe to our newsletter, subscribe to our RSS feed and tell your fellow CrocFans where we’ve moved.

We will be announcing a new contest shortly that will hopefully build some excitement around the new domain LittleRubberShoes.com. Stay tuned for more details on this, but expect to see a much bigger and better prize than just one free pair of Crocs like previous contest.

In closing, of this marathon post… it is my hope that companies will start learning how to leverage brand evangelists to their advantage. The companies that can harness the power of brand evangelists will not only build their brand but build it without additional marketing cost.

I read an article today that up until last year Zappos.com had 5 people in their marketing department. They are expecting to do a billion dollars in sales next year. They have focused on providing the best customer satisfaction and letting their customers do their marketing for them. Zappos gets brand evangelism.

The cheapest way to get a new customer is not by you talking about your products (traditional marketing). It is by finding ways to get other people talking about your products.

Brand evangelists have been around for a long time. Traditionally, they could only reach one person at a time. The internet gives your brand evangelists much more power and in some cases the ability to reach thousand if not millions of people. Companies need to work with these people who are your brand evangelists; they are your most valuable marketing resource.

I wonder if our friends over at IHateCrocs.com have received a letter?

palpable anger and ihatecrocs in the christian science monitor

We're in the Christian Science Monitor. You can't tell from the article, but my interview with this reporter was the best I've done. Interviews aren't that easy, I'll have you know. But I'm getting better at them. Also, the reporter asked some good questions. Plus, it is always fun to make a reporter laugh. The parts that mention us:

And on ihatecrocs.com, Vincenzo Ravina and Kate Leth devote an entire website "to the elimination of Crocs and those who think their excuses for wearing them are viable."

Ask Mr. Ravina why he finds Crocs so objectionable, and then take a breath. "They are exceedingly ugly. They are chunky, luridly colored, perforated, and overall, an eyesore," he replies. "They are to your eyes what second-hand smoke is to your lungs."

Ravina, a college student from Halifax, Nova Scotia, scoffs at testaments to the comfort of Crocs. "My bathrobe is comfortable," he says. "But I don't wear it to the supermarket. You have to respect other people's aesthetic."

He and fellow blogger Ms. Leth have clearly struck a chord with their website, which they created a year ago on a whim and now gets at least 1,000 visitors a day. "I didn't expect it to take off the way it did," he says. They also do a brisk business selling T-shirts and buttons, with logos like "Friends don't let friends wear Crocs," and more simply, "I hate Crocs."

***

As long as their popularity persists, devoted Crocs haters say they'll continue with their venom, too. Ravina thinks the fad will soon fade – "look at the Macarena," he says.

HERE is the full article. It's worth a read.

And we've got an email from the lovely Danielle, who knows me in real true life and gives me a ride home from work sometimes:

Today I went to Cirque Du Soleil. Seeing as this was somewhat of a Cultured Event I took the time out of my day to wear some nice clothes, and try to look decent. I wore some nice shoes, they were not crocs. In the time that we were waiting in front of The Metro Center and when the show actually officially started, I saw no less than 10 pairs of Crocs on the feet of those attending the show. Now, I won't even begin to start in on those people who chose to dress as if they were going to soccer practice or had just woken up. What I want to focus on are the twin boys (about age 10 or so) who were wearing dress pants and dress shirts with BLACK CROCS! As well as the old woman who was wearing a nice skirt and blouse... with WHITE CROCS! The best part about the woman with the white Crocs were her jibbits. Those stupid little "decorations" that people stick into the holes of their Crocs in hopes that they will make them a little less hideous, when in fact, all they do is make them look uglier. These jibbits were the epitome of all jibbits, they were the creme du la creme of jibbit-dom! They were very large fake pearls surrounded by a ruffle of gold! So beautiful! They really made the outfit, I tell you... So, you have it here! Crocs have made it into the realm of "dress shoes" all you need is fancy jibbits!

These descriptions make me shudder like few things can. Crocs are ungodly, everyone. Jibbitz, too. Just stop. Please. Come join us and make the world a less ugly place. All of the arguments mentioned in the below post are secondary to the number one concern we have. They make me want to put my eyes out with brooches. Who got that reference?

I hate Crocs so much, I'll make a convincing argument against them.

The I Hate Crocs Facebook group is home to much civil debate and discussion. I'm very pleased by the civil part, but also by the debate and discussion parts. One discussion topic 'Why are Crocs bad?' has a particularly well-argued bit of writing against Crocs. Here is part of Eudora Chua's post:

2) They are bad for the environment. The material they are made out of cannot be recycled or bio-degraded. Years from now when the fad wears off we will have landfills full of the things. Our legacy to the people of the future is going to include not only all the trash we are already producing but bright, neon-coloured, foam shoes.

3) They are hazardous. There have been over ten documented accidents with these shoes, on escalators especially. Children have lost toes to these things because the straps get caught in the sides of the escalator. A casual, practical, affordable sandal has caused kids to be injured, and these kids were under parental supervision, not running around as they pleased or playing on the escalator.

The articles I'm referring to were published in a respectable newspaper in my country, The Straits Times, not some tabloid that fabricates news. Of course the shoes are not the only factor and there are other shoes like sneakers that have laces and can get caught. But with laces there's an obvious hazard. Crocs are marketed as being super comfortable and safe, most people don't even see the strap as a hazard. Admittedly this isn't a huge point but it is something to be taken into consideration.

As a sidepoint, Crocs have been banned in some hospitals and schools, for safety reasons. When you're working around potentially bio-hazardous material, you don't really want holes in your shoes.

4) The entire Croc fad is materialism at one of its worst displays. I'm not trying to promote Armani, or Nike. They're really not that practical, especially for people who live in temperate countries, you will only wear these the most 6 out of 12 months. Come autumn and winter, your feet would freeze thanks to the fantastic holes which are so applauded. In fact, where I come from there are plenty of non-branded alternatives. We've had sandals that are comfortable and washable for years, just check out your nearest Wal-mart or K-mart or Sears or whatever store's nearest to you. Nice pairs of sandals don't need to cost even $40, if you don't care about the brand name. Crocs are a product created for which there was no real, urgent need. When taken into consideration along with the other points above, it's hard to see them in a positive light. So much of its appeal is simply the hype.

5) People use the excuse, 'they are so comfortable' to wear them to everything and anything'. If you protest that Crocs are not suitable for, let us say, places of worship, the office or events like weddings and funerals, they say they are making a statement. I have seen this too many times to discount it as unrelated, individual incidents. The correlation was the clogs.

People don't see that simply because they are available it's an excuse to wear them to everything. Even on orthopaedic grounds it's not really arguable--how much support can a pair of clogs that is made from from some resin material provide? For something that's so comfortable, it can actually cause flattened arches over a prolonged period of use due to the lack of adequate support. And people don't know this because the marketing campaign simply says they are comfortable and orthopaedically sound.

""I'll get people with strained arches because they've been running around in Crocs for five days," said Arnold Ravick, a doctor of podiatric medicine in Washington, D.C., and a spokesman for the American Podiatric Medical Association. "When it comes to shoes, people mistake comfort for support. Comfort is fool's gold—a soft gushy shoe that makes your arches collapse," he told me. "Crocs are popular because they're inexpensive and interchangeable. For people with certain problems, they can be a good shoe. Are they good for your foot, in general? No."" (www.slate.com/id/2170301)

Well-argued! I've been convinced. The full post is HERE.

'Crocs link to smugness and idiocy,' says the Daily Mash

An article from the Daily Mash:

WEARING Crocs shoes will transform you from a normal adult into a horribly self-satisfied and “self-consciously whacky tosser”, leading doctors warned last night.

Donning the brightly coloured plastic footwear is likely to make middle class women believe their dress sense is a lot more interesting than it really is, the doctors added.

Their research suggests Crocs may also encourage such women to think they are “a bit kooky” and individual, when in reality they are just wearing stupid shoes aimed at kids, and copying all their friends.

Cherie Jackers, whose parents David and Enid are leading vegetarians and caravanners, said she loved her Crocs and had bought them for all the family.

She said: “When I was at school I was always considered to be a bit of a crazy one and I was forever having to tell my friends to not mind me because I was ‘a bit mad’.

“So you can imagine Crocs are just perfect for me, they show everyone I am not just a sweaty mum with bad hair, but a really interesting individual with interesting and individual taste, just like the millions of other interesting and individual mums who wear Crocs too.”

Mrs Jackers said the shoes were “fantabulous” because she could wear them with anything, including her favourite grey jogging trousers with the bobbles and the saggy bum.

She said: “It doesn’t matter if the colours clash, or if the Crocs look stupid and out of place. In fact that’s the point of them. It just proves I’m totally crazy.”

Chloe Jackers, 11, and her brother Sam, 10, said their mother was “an embarrassment” and that while Crocs were “all right for five year olds I suppose” they were planning to burn theirs and run away from home.

Dr Raj Peshwar, a behaviourial psychologist and expert on the middle classes who conducted the research project, said Mrs Jackers was “unbearably smug” and a “total fucker”. “I hope she dies, horribly,” he added.

On their site, the article is HERE.

IHATECROCS loses an intern

Well, summer is going to be drawing to a close soon and with summer's end, we lose our intern, Dirk. Dirk has been this summer's IHATECROCS intern and has been getting us coffee and typing out all our posts as we dictate them to him. We were lucky to have an intern of such a high calibre and with such low self esteem. Anyway, as he will be returning to his home tomorrow, I've decided to allow him to write about his experiences these past few weeks.

Hello, Croc-blockers.

The weeks I interned at I Hate Crocs HQ were sweet. Vincenzo and Kate are real nice people, except for when it comes to Crocs. More than once, they said to go out into the expansive backyard and destroy Crocs in a bunch of weird ways. And everytime, Vincenzo said, "No, Dirk, don't bring the camera this time. I'm not legally allowed to have these chemicals."

Anyway, after that point in the letter, Dirk started to seriously ignore the non-disclosure agreements he signed and we can't have that kind of information out there. What occurs in the manor is not told to the public for a reason.

Good luck, Dirk. Keep the faith.

If you are interested in an unpaid internship at IHATECROCS HQ, please send a resume and cover letter to IHATECROCS@gmail.com. You must be in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada in summer 2008, however.

And now, a letter from our good friend Nick:

Dear Vincenzo and Kate

There is a group of us that share the same feelings towards crocs. Here are some videos I have done that refer to crocs. www.pibtv.com/movies/CROCS.wmv

This next one refereces crocs at the end of the video. www.WILLTHISBEND.com

Hope you enjoy and keep up the fight to remove crocs from the streets and put them back in the garden where they belong.

Nick James

Correction, Nick. Crocs don't belong anywhere. Except perhaps Hell, where they came from.

And lastly, we have some somewhat boring hatemail:

Sorry but I hate your web site! Crocs are good for your feet, cool looking, water proof, and cool your feet of. You are mean, rude, and bad citizens .I hate your products.You disgust me, my friends and family!!!

We accept your apology.

DCfosheezy: Enemy of shift keys everywhere

Fellow Croc-blockers,

It may interest you to know that not everyone agrees with you, me and Kate. There are those who, in fact, dislike our having made this website at all. This may come as a shock to you. From the very beginning, I hoped that someone, somewhere, might become so incensed about our having made this website that they would go out and buy IHateIHateCrocsDotCom. And then, I thought, we could have the owners of that site over for a diplomatic dinner party and we could laugh and laugh. Unfortunately, at time of writing, no one has purchased IHateIHateCrocsDotCom. But, a blogger called DCfosheezy has written all about how much he dislikes us hating Crocs at his blog IHateYouHatersDotBlogspotDotCom:

I HATE "I HATE CROCS.COM" THESE GOTH-ISH NOVA SCOTIANS IN BETWEEN THEIR WEBSITE AND YOUTUBE/FACEBOOK BLASPHEMY... SEEM TO JUST TRY TO LOWBLOW THIS COMPANY, HEY RETARDS, THE CROSLITE MATERIAL (WHICH IS NOT RUBBER; STOP CALLING IT RUBBER, IT AINT, AND ITS GOT NO LATEX) WAS ORIGINALLY CREATED AND PRODUCED IN CANADA. SO WHATEVER, IN THE END WE CAN BLAME ANY MISHAPS ON THE CANADIANS... THEY STARTED IT.
ESCALATOR ACCIDENTS ARE TRAGIC, BUT CROCS DO NOT INCREASE THIS RISK IN ANY WAY. IN FACT THEM NOT HAVING LONG LOOSE LACES MAKES THEM 10 TIMES FUCKING SAFER THAN THE SKATE SHOES I USUALLY WEAR IN THE MALL. ALSO, WHATEVER HAPPENED TO," HOLD THE HANDRAIL AND WATCH YOUR STEP." JUST TEACHING PEOPLE THAT WOULD ENSURE SAFETY. THESE INCIDENTS ARE MOST OFTEN DO TO REALLY PISS POOR SHITTY MAINTENANCE OF ESCALATORS AND WALKING SIDEWALKS. BLAME THE LAZY MECHANICS AND THE MALLS THAT DONT GIVE A DAMN TO PAY MONEY TO REGULAR MAINTAIN THEIR PROPERTY. ALSO, TAKE THE DAMN STAIRS OR ELEVATOR EVERY NOW AND THEN. IHATECROCS.COM IS JUST ANOTHER LAME WEBSITE STARTED BY A COUPLE OF "HOT TOPIC" SHOPPERS WHO RATHER WEAR KNEE-HIGH 20 BUCKLE BOOTS FOR THE PRICE OF A PAIR OF AIR JORDANS, THAN RATHER BE COOL AND OR COMFORTABLE. IF SHOPKEEPERS AND MINIMUM WAGE MALL SECURITY GUARDS WANT TO TRY TO WARN SHOPPERS AND POST SHIT SAYING HOW DANGEROUS CROCS ARE, YOU'RE DUMB.
CROCS MAKES MILLIONS AND WILL CONTINUE TO FOREVER AND EVER. NOT A FAD YOU FAGS. SO JUST POP YOUR CHEAP PRESCIPTION CANADIAN DRUGS AND SHUT UP ALREADY.

We were, in fact, aware that Crocslite was originally created and produced in Canada. And we are Canadian. I suppose DCfosheezy's argument is that Kate and I agree with everything that is created and produced in our fair country. I, personally, do not agree with maple syrup. I find it altogether too sugary and syrupy. Also, I really don't like that our DVD cases have all the text in both English and French. I think DVD covers are cluttered enough as it is without having to cram both languages on. They should have both options available. I think that would be better. And we should probably take the critic's comments off the cover, too. And I hate how sometimes books that have won award have a note saying 'Winner of the whatever award' in a circle that looks like a sticker, but is in fact printed right on the cover and cannot be peeled off. That just ruins a perfectly good book. I don't even remember what I was talking about anymore.

Oh yes, DCfosheezy. What a charming name, as well. I object to the 'goth-ish' comment, as neither Kate nor I are 'goth-ish'. I'm not exactly sure where this got started.

We don't tend to comment on the whole escalator debacle, though we occasionally post the emails we get about it simply because we get so many. We steer away from mentioning it because it is not funny. It is horrifying. Especially the pictures.

Truthfully, I don't much feel like going through and countering every allegation our friend made (not to mention the amount of time it would take to parse each woefully grammatically incorrect sentence), but I do feel I should say that I've never set foot inside a 'Hot Topic', nor am I exactly sure what 'Hot Topic' is. I think it is a clothing store.

DCfosheezy's blog, I Hate You Haters Dot Blogspot Dot Com, so far only features the sole entry I've reposted here. It is an honour.