“HondAnonymous” is a commenter on Jalopnik, a Gawker site about cars, who claims to work at Honda’s R&D facility.
They have been contributing to Jalopnik discussions with insider dirt on the corners that Honda has been cutting in its new cars. In response, Honda’s lawyers have demanded that Jalopnik remove the posts, and dox the commenter in order to help the company discover their identity.
This isn’t just technically impossible (Gawker doesn’t retain any information that would help it identify HondAnonymous, and the whistleblower was careful enough to use a burner account to sign up), it’s deeply unethical and an extremely reality-impaired move on the part of Honda’s lawyers.
Rather than caving in, Jalopnik has published about the letter from Honda and vowed never to help the company to track down disgruntled employees.
To Honda, or any other automaker: If you would like us to delete the comments of our readers or expose their identities (which, again, we can’t do anyway) again, please let me know! I am more than happy to drag your intimidation tactics into the public eye for all your customers and prospective buyers to see. Govern yourselves accordingly.
Honda’s Lawyers Want Us To Dox One Of Our Readers; We Said Hell No [Patrick George/Jalopnik]
(via Techdirt)
(Image: Honda Civic Wreck, Foto Sleuth, CC-BY)
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