Apr 28 2007

WSJ: Hanging out in Verizon’s Pocket

Posted at 11:27 am under Media Morons

Okay, this one is a damn classic. Paul Kapustka from GigaOM seems to have caught the WSJ red-handed in a bit of shadiness. On Friday, Vonage ran an ad slamming Verizon in its patent case. The ad, according to Kapustka, had what looked like a sharpie line through it. Closer examination of the ad in question revealed that the ad did have a marker line through it, but it was in the ad, not done by his delivery person. Here’s a shot he had of the ad in question (click to embiggen ever so slightly).

Vz2

Kapustka contacted Vonage for a copy of the ad, and they sent him the unredacted ad that ran in the New York Times, also on Friday. The edited line reads ““Now, Verizon has chosen to attack Vonage in the courts. Why? Could it be all about the money?” Vonage was told by the Wall Street Journal that the ad would not be accepted at all in its original format (ie: with that line in tact).

So now you have to wonder… What in that ad was so egregious that it required it to be censored or scrapped? Or was it just the fact that Vonage called Verizon on the carpet for its predatory use of a patent it probably shouldn’t have had in the first place?

Technorati Tags: , , , ,

Leave a comment