Brad

I never said the WM letter was a C&D. We did receive an actual C&D from OfficeMax today, and other sites have received them from Macy's and LNT.

Exactly. I'd repost them on the Wednesday of that week most likely, primarily just so people can print their shopping lists. By then the ad is basically out so they are not getting much free advertsing.

All these stores doing things now - we are 2 weeks away. It's not like this is mid-October. Your competitors' ads are printed and sitting in a warehouse somewhere by now. Sure would be nice if one of the huge, multi-million dollar deal sites like Fatwallet or Slickdeals would challenge one of these stores in court and maybe get an effective legal precedent set. Being a one-man operation I don't have the resources to do something like that this time of year. I had a bad feeling coming into this year that things were going to happen like this. And like Gurnee Al said, things are going to get worse. Don't be surprised if a bunch of stores send out legal letters well before their ads come out next year like WM did this year. The good news is GD is open year round and we don't need BF ads to find great deals - just look at our Online Hot Deals forum lately and see all the great Black Friday-worthy deals being posted.

They may have for all we know. They didn't demand the ad be taken down, so there is no real way of knowing who else they terminated. I wouldn't bother with a general customer service e-mail. The e-mail address I posted in the OP is from their main affiliate rep who I have been dealing with.

Let's not get carried away with giving them credit - the deadline was probably more because they sent the e-mail after business hours and couldn't know that it would be read before tomorrow anyway.

No, posting the ad was the only issue. The CNN story just let them know the ad was out. I would post the e-mail I received from them, but for legal reasons I'm not going to...

I don't expect Target to demand the ad be removed. They just terminated the affiliate relationship so that we cannot make any money from items purchased through the links on the site. Basically they were upset that their ad was leaked and so they took it out on us like a bully. I'm still debating whether I will just completely remove the ad as to give them no free advertising. Regardless, with any ad that I am forced to remove, I will back up the text list and the shopping list, and when the ad is re-posted, your shopping list items will be restored.

Wal-Mart - threatens legal action and affiliate account closure if ad is posted Target - terminates affiliate account with no warning after ad is posted OfficeMax - sends cease & desist order demanding ad be taken down Radio Shack - threatens to terminate affiliate account if ads are not removed F.Y.E - terminates affiliate account with no warning a couple weeks after ad is posted Linens-N-Things - sends cease & desist order demanding ad be taken down Big Lots - sends cease & desist order demanding ad be taken down Lowes - sends cease & desist to several other BF sites (not us, yet) Macy's - sends cease & desist to several other BF sites (not us, yet) hhgregg - sends ad to us directly, then demands it be taken down Definitely more of these incidents than in any previous year, and we've still got 2 weeks to go

FYI: Other sites have received C&Ds demanding that the LNT ad be taken down. We have not received one of these yet, but I'm giving you all a warning anyway...

Yep. They responded to my e-mail with a link to the CNN story and quoted some extremely vague clause from the affiliate terms which didn't specifically mention BF or anything about ads.

We received a C&D from OfficeMax's legal reps a short while ago who are demanding that the ad be taken down by tomorrow. Therefore I suggest you save the ad to your computer very soon. While the ad will be removed from the BF site, we will save the items that are currently on your shopping list, and once we can re-post the ad, the items will be restored to your shopping lists. This seems to be a disturbing trend this year...

While they have not threatened legal action (yet), Target today without warning cancelled GottaDeal's affiliate account. This, despite the fact that we have been an affiliate of Target since the site started almost 4 years ago and have posted their BF ad every year with no previous issues. This, also despite the fact that Target attempted to buy ad space from us directly this year on the Black Friday site. So they had no problems with what we did and wanted to use the traffic we receive to promote their business, but when we posted their ad, they got upset. Boo hoo. While this will have an adverse affect on the business-side of things, the ad will still remain posted until we are legally forced to do otherwise. And if you'd like to express your thoughts to Target about this action, you can contact Jillian Putnam, their Marketing Analyst for the Affiliate Program at [email protected]

We received a C&D from OfficeMax's legal reps a short while ago who are demanding that the ad be taken down by tomorrow. Therefore I suggest you save the ad to your computer very soon. While the ad will be removed from the BF site, we will save the items that are currently on your shopping list, and once we can re-post the ad, the items will be restored to your shopping lists. This seems to be a disturbing trend this year...

I sleep until 10am because I'm usually up until 2-3am. I'm basically on west coast time :) In past years, around 75% of the items were available online starting Thanksgiving Day. Some sold out quicker than others obviously.

I told CNN :)

TruTech is one of Target's "house" brands. Probably made by another company and given the private label. They had a lot of TruTech stuff in their BF ad last year - maybe someone who bought something last year can chime in on the quality.

well, the scans are still uploaded, just not linked anywhere. and if you look at the format for the URLs for the other ads, you can probably guess the correct URL for those scans too if you know the name of the store...

Remember how I said how hhgregg sent their ad over themselves? Well today they apprently changed their mind and don't want the ad posted for another couple of weeks. So after spending hours last night typing it up and posting it item by item on the BF site, I had to take it down. And because of that, it will not be posted back on the site, ever. Too bad for hhgregg

CNN.com story about the Target ad: http://money.cnn.com/2007/11/08/news/companies/Target_blackfriday/index.htm

Target doesn't do doorbusters on BF. At least they haven't for the last few years.

LOL. I have do finsih some more work with the ads on the BF site (adding pics, etc...) and then I'll take a nap.

NO NO NO, I don't want to remain busy today Usually I don't get up until 3-4 hours from now, so you all are lucky that my dog got me up in the middle of the night and I happened to check my e-mail, lol.

http://forums.gottadeal.com/showthread.php?t=82464

http://forums.gottadeal.com/showthread.php?t=82464

from another site. no prices yet.