This part of the article pretty much sums it up:

"I found the store unattractive, not as richly merchandised as competitor Best Buy and frankly, dark, dirty and poorly marked. The bland gray carpet was spotted. A surprising amount of merchandise was marked incorrectly or not marked at all. I began to think it was part of a grander strategy to force you to talk to a sales rep. And when I finally did buy a CD-cleaning kit, I had to wait several minutes for someone to show up at the register -- even though store employees outnumbered customers at the moment."

I registered this ID just to want to tell you guys something or confess you may call it.

1. I am not a DVD fan at all but I visit this forum piously only for speedy's early sneak peek
2. I fully took advantage of 110% price match policy, "buy earlier and match later" on weekly basis, and many many times I did this on purpose just for that 10% difference.
3. I have scored a lot of Nintendo Wiis and sold them on ebay for quite a profit.
4. I am not alone. I know many many people on all kinds of bargain/deal sites doing the exact same things as I did thanks to speedy's preview.

yes, I know I am a cheap ass. Anyway, I will miss speedy's post and sincerely thank him for all his hard work. Hopefully he will get through this ok.

I'm wondering if this is not a 1st Amendment issue, as Speedy has been acting as an Internet consumer reporter. If legal action by Circuit City is continued, perhaps someone like the ACLU needs to get involved here.

It would be great public relations for a struggling company like Circuit City to be known as a U.S. corporation that does not believe in the freedom of the press!

Yes it was. Just as there is nothing wrong with posting that Amazon is having a 25% off sale on certain DVDs, or that Target is clearancing out box sets. Posting sale prices at Circuit City helps the store.

They pay untold thousands of dollars each week to print and circulate their ads and Speedy is helping disseminate that information to the exact people they are hoping to reach.

Now, let me turn the question back on you: Is it right to legally harass, intimidate, and bully people and organizations who are driving business to your establishment without first simply asking them to stop? Not is it legal, but is it the right thing to do?

Hello, I ask this question before and did not get any responses. Did Speedy get the early sales papers legally? Meaning did he get them from someone who had permission to release the papers early? Did the stores themselves send the papers to him early? If he received the papers illegally then CC had every right to do what they did. Please don't get me wrong I absolutely despise Circuit City and rarely if ever shop there, but the way it looks now they had every right to stop Speedy. Are they wrong for doing it I would say yes but it appears they have a case. First thing they should do instead of going after Speedy is to find out where the leak is coming from and stop it immediately.

It's don't ask don't tell here. We don't know.

I doubt he got them legitimately. I, for one, will be shopping at CC today. Life is too short to carry a petty personal vendetta against a corporation.

I used to post the early BB ad a couple of years ago but it wasn't as early as Speedy. Just a Wednesday for an ad beginning on Sunday. Yes, I obtained it legitimately. It's probably still available thru that "source" now. Could I now be prohibited from sharing that?

I'm quite sure that he has access to the ads, legitimately. How, I don't know? However, I highly doubt that he had some secret operation, by which he would illegally try to obtain these ads.

As far as your statement about life being too short, that's true. It also can be said that life is too short for a corporation to carry a petty personal vendetta against someone posting the ads a little early. Especially if that is actually driving sales to said corporation, which I suspect it was.

Trade secrets have to be kept locked away or under key in order to protect them as a trade secret. By giving them to a newspaper/printer to be published, that company probably has a sign agreement promising to keep them secret, to keep the "trade secret" definition. So I could see both sides here.

On the matter of legality or not: it can be assumed that once the print ads begin moving from the printers into the distribution channels, then no one beyond that point has been required to sign any confidentiality agreements. In most cases not even the printers are bound by these agreements, as is the case for printers of financially sensitive (stocks and securities) documents which must be bonded. So, it's not like these items are stamped "SECRET" or "Do Not Show To Speedy19XX". They must be in the distribution channels if anyone can get their hands on ads from more than one retailer at the same time.

Even if Speedy did have access to the information under an NDA, it still is not necessarily true that CiCi's subpoenas to DVDTalk and CAG are legal. A while back, a couple of websites published some information that Apple considered to be trade secrets. Apple tried to subpoena those websites for information about the people who leaked the info. Apple lost that on appeal.

http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/mac/...-bloggers.html

Unfortunately, the fact that management here has said nothing of the sort makes me wonder if this isn't true.

I hope neither site sells Speedy out. I don't see where CC would have the grounds to request that they do.

I cringed when I saw Speedy say he wanted to help "break" the story of the PS3 prices, though. Was afraid that would be a bad idea.

I don't think you've read the whole thread then. The owner has said the following:

CC is not the government, so no, it is not a first amendment issue.

To be clear were in the process of responding to this subpoena. It's not an immediate thing and we're consulting with some pretty hefty players in the first amendment space before we finalize our response.

So I reiterate, please be patient. Just because we're not saying a lot about it, doesn't mean we're not doing a lot about it.

No, there's nothing wrong at all about those. Posting "Hey, you can save money by buying this now" or "Check your Target, there's a sale!" is perfectly fine. Posting it *early* before it's "announced" is 110% different.

Fine. Wait till Saturday night after store closing to post the ads. Or wait till they can be found in the paper (someone said they saw them on Wednesdays).
They don't spend those thousands of dollars just to help you save money, just to be nice. They spend that money to make money; every one of their policies is (or should be) created with the intent of maximizing profit and building customer base.

Geoff hasn't shared the details of the legal tactics, and I am not a lawyer. So, I'm going to ignore the loaded terms like "bully". However, given the current feel of entitlement and "Fight the Power!" and "Anything goes if I save money" that is prevalent on the internet, I'd say hell yes. Hit hard from the beginning. Tone it down if possible after the desired results are returned, but as we've seen, if a retailer gives a bit, they're going to be raped (see: Amazon misprice.) And I've always been in customer service--the cliche is, "the customer is always right", but the reality is, some customers we don't need.

"It all comes out in the wash"? Huh? We all die anyway, so nothing really matters? Is that just a nihilistic "whatever goes" response?

Do you think CC really cares about this type of customer?

Neither one is wrong unless he signed an NDA which we have no idea of. This isn't China. If I see something I can tell people about it unless I sign a contract not to. If I had access to the ads early I would sure as hell post them everywhere. CC doesn't like it they need to change the way they distribute them so people can't see them early.

:thumbsup:

Just following your lead using terms like "steal".

You are changing the subject with a nonsensical example. (The Amazon misprice was a case of "Hey, you can save money by buying this now" which you stated "is perfectly fine." I defy you to site an example of where the administration of DVDTalk weighted in on the debate on either side. And how did Amazon "give a bit"?) A better example would be Black Friday prices. A couple of years ago Best Buy and other stores send "cease and desist" letters to many web sites. DVDTalk complied and in their forums people are no longer allowed to post those ads early. You've been around a while, I'm sure you know that.

So it has been shown that a simple request is enough to stop action that they do not like. Yet they didn't even try that, and that's what has many people in this thread angry.

You wanted to talk about morals. Not what is "legal" but what is right. We may just have to agree to disagree, but my contention is that it is wrong to use more force than is nessisary to gain a desired result. They are purposfully hurting people (web site owners and Speedy who now have to come up with money for lawyers) when they could avoid it and still end up in the same place. That is morally wrong.

It's a response that says since the best you can do is hand-waving examples of possible harm to CiCi, and there are just as many hand-waving examples of possible benefit to CiCi that it is pretty much a wash.

I dunno, do you?
If you believe your implicit assumption that such sales are money-losers, then I bet they absolutely LOVE that kind of customer when they make their purchases and pricematches with the competition. Since just about everybody does the 110% pricematch thing, people like that are more likely to buy from a competitor and take advantage of the 110% pricematch than they are to buy from CiCi, because there are at least 2x-3x more competitors' storefronts than there are CiCi storefronts.

So now that it's after midnight can someone post the deals? Is Madden being sold for less than list price?

For the answer to that, my friend, you'll have to hit up each retailers website. I don't believe we'll see ads posted until this whole ordeal is sorted out, and that depends on the outcome.

Actually I think it does hurt Circuit City the most. Not all stores have 110% policy. Bestbuy don't do that they only match the price but no 10% perk. Walmart has 110% policy but most time they don't even carry the same stuff as Circuit City or Bestbuy. On the other hand, not only do Circuit City 110% match competitor's price, but they also 110% match their own pirce within 30 days. So for me, Circuit City has become the best place to shop ever since I found this forum.

I could occasionally overlook the poor lighting and organization, the bad dvd selection and horrendous cd selection, the empty cashier stations, and the employees with zero product knowledge and actually shop at a CC. Then there's the maze of wireless communication accessories that seem to form a line near the only place one can "check-out" in the store--the customer service area. The same line that accepts returns, exchanges, in-store pickups, and warranty information. Why wait in line for 15 minutes to save sometimes $1.00 to $2.00? Screw CC.