Looks like Dell's lawyers haven't quite figured out that any takedown request they issue is actually a PR move (and not a positive one). On June 14th, the Consumerist pushed out a letter they got from a former Dell sales guy. On the 15th, one of Dell's lawyers tried to get them to take it down - after a brief exchange, she said this:

Dell will not regard any such immediate action as an agreement regarding the merits of the request, or as an admission of any liability on the part of consumerist.com or any related person or entity.

If after any necessary discussion between counsel we cannot agree that this was indeed the appropriate course of action, you can always re-post the item.

That's a comment that is utterly oblivious to the nature of the net, and - even more striking - oblivious to what the Consumerist mentioned in the (for now) final comment on the matter:

Of course, it is your decision whether you want to pursue this matter, but I advise you to talk to the team that had to deal with the falllout from the Jeff Jarvis affair before you decide to try and silence your critics. Work for the customer, not against them.

This may sound like a crazy idea, but I think companies need to do two things:

• Fire their "legacy" PR people, and get a team that actually understands the net, social media, blogs, podcasts (etc)
• Rearrange the org chart such that the legal department reports through PR

Why? Well, a law department acting under "the old rules" can do enormous damage to a firm's reputation - I've talked about these sorts of things before. Any legal action aimed in the takedown direction needs competent oversight, and it's likely not going to come out of the legal department.

Technorati Tags: law, marketing