: Yes, Im intrigued too. They got so upset about a small leaflet handed out to a few hundred people outside a McDonald's store. You'd think this site reaching thousands of people would be driving them crazy. Do you at McSpotlight have any evidence that the Macca Corp. read it and keep track? Could they sue you for possibly defamatory statements made on this site? Could they sue us (the readers) for saying something rude about them? I'm kind of hoping they will. Aren't you?McDonald's can sue anyone they like at any time. It costs them next to nothing to send a solicitors' letter threatening legal action and they know full well that the vast majority of people will back down rather than face a court case. In fact, before Helen and Dave, _everyone_ had backed down.
So, yes, anyone writing to McSpotlight could be sued. Anyone giving out leaflets could be sued. Anyone working on McSpotlight could be sued. Anyone writing an article or a news piece can be sued.
This is what we're up against and this is why it's so important that as many people as possible stand up this kind of legal bullying and censorship.
If they are going to sue anyone, then as you so rightly point out, McSpotlight is the most obvious candidate (but there's also the author/ publishers of the McLibel book and the Channel 4 drama). But trying to sue us would be enormously complicated. Which jurisdiction? Who made it? How do you get proof of involvement?
The most important thing to McDonald's is surely that they suppress any critical information. They know as well as we do that they will _never_ be able to control the material that McSpotlight contains (what with mirror sites, the kit version, the forthcoming CD-ROM, the speed as which the information can be copied, and the range of the Internet in so many countries). There would be little point suing to suppress the information, so the only reason would be to scare people into not continuing.
And somehow I don't think that's going to work in our case, do you?
Jessy
ps. of course, if they _do_ sue it's more publicity, more hits on the site and more people reading about the issues. which is the whole point.
None.
