The freepers are having a heyday making fun of DU. They pulled a thread awhile back wherein Bev Harris slammed some DU'ers for using her incorporated trade name. It, as you can imagine, caused a stink, and the freepers are using it to make fun of us. Folowing is my, I hope, reasoned reply to the mess. Freepers: Take note
Bevs intent was to make sure that, down the line, there would be no confusion about the who, what, when, and where BBV.org originated and resides. She did not want any confusion to ever come about because of the use of her incoporated trade name on DU or any other place. That is good business practice. Did she go slightly overboard getting her point across? Yep.
Below is Bev's response to a DU member concerning the use of BBV.
MadFloridian: First of all, I am here in your state arranging for a hand count. Now, this isn't "talking to people that way." What do you think would happen if I started organizing a "PFAW Election Protection" group on DU? That trade name belongs to People for the American Way and their related entities. Surely you see that it would be nuts to just go in and take their trade name without permission? This is very important. Stuff like this can cause groups to lose their 501c(3) status. If we do not protect our own trade name, and publicly, all it takes is someone with good intentions encouraging something that is against our approved charter, and we lose our whole operation."
Like I say, just taking care of business, and I might add, she got it right the first time. There won't be any confusion down the line. If some Diebold lawyer could bring up the fact that BBV.org was not Bev Harris and company, a judge could hand her a terrible setback on just that one technicallity.
What? You expected a hard driving person like Bev Harris to let something slip by her and end up screwing her royally?