The below is a post from Mark Pincus Blog (Mark Pincus Blog ):
Murry Gunty is trying to keep me quiet about his past
i received the email below from six apart yesterday, asking me to ‘edit out’ murry’s last name as it invaded his privacy. (murry is the kid who was caught cheating in a school election at harvard business school). what’s amazing is that murry’s story made the wall street journal and he himself wrote a letter in the school paper apologizing to his parents.
this brings up a number of questions.
1. can anyone tell me what the privacy laws are around something like this? do you have a legal right to stop someone from publishing a story around your name after it has been in a large public paper?
2. should any of us be trusting our blogging fate to six apart when the company is so willing to bend to any outside request and try to force us to change our blogs?
3. i wish that murry could take a more positive approach to all this, comment on my blog, talk about all you’ve done to overcome, how you’ve found an ethical path.
Six Apart (Six Apart) said: 07/27/2006 01:39 PM
Dear Mr. Pincus,
"I apologize for the need to contact you. I’ve recently been notified that one of your blog posts contains a small violation of TypePad’s Terms of Service. The blog post located at http://markpincus.typepad.com/markpincus/2006/01/10000_words_on_.html contains the name "Murry Gunty." Unfortunately, because of the combined information in your post, this together with the rest of the post is enough to be considered an invasion of Mr. Gunty’s privacy.
There’s no need to remove the post; it just needs to be slightly edited. If you could please remove Mr. Gunty’s last name, then it would no longer be enough information to be considered invasive of his privacy. I would very much appreciate if you could edit out his last name in the next 48 hours."
Section 3 of Typepad’s Terms of Service…
CANCELLATION AND TERMINATION
You agree Six Apart, in its sole
discretion, may terminate your password, and/or account, and remove and
discard any Content within the Service (including, but not limited to
your Blog Site if you are an Account Holder), for any reason, including
and without limitation, the lack of use, or if Six Apart believes that
you have violated or acted inconsistently with the letter or spirit of
the TOS. Any contracts, verbal or written or assumed, in conjunction
with your deleted Blog Site (as applicable) and all its parts, at Six
Apart’s discretion, will be terminated as well. Six Apart may also in
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