Chris Raettig said he set up his site offering visitors the anthems of several companies in MP3 format because “they were so bad, they were good.” He comments, “The KPMG anthem in particular was hilarious.” For several minutes, the firm’s anthem repeats the mantra:
"KPMG
We're strong as can be
A dream of power and energy
We go for the goal
Together we hold
On to our vision of global strategy."
Raettig’s site quotes an unnamed KPMG insider describing it ask, “awful, awful, awful and we are very (very) embarrassed to be associated with it.” Raettig received an e-mail from KPMG which noted that his site contained a link to KPMG’s site at kpmg.com. The firm wrote: “Please be aware that such links require that a formal Agreement exist between our two parties, as mandated by our or organisation’s Web Link Policy.”
Raettig replied, refusing to remove the link and posted the firm’s e-mail on his web site. Legally, KPMG is in largely uncharted territory. While it might succeed in persuading a court to stop him linking to pages within its site, known as deep linking, it will be hard for the firm to argue that he should not link to the home page at kpmg.com. KPMG has little to gain by taking a firm stance against the existence of the link, but the risk for the firm is embarrassment and, potentially, damage to its reputation. Raettig finds the whole dispute entertaining and has won the support of many others citing freedom of speech.
In another recent case of a large business shooting itself in the foot by taking action against an individual, Canadian Tire, a large retailer, took a claim for the domain name CrappyTire.com to the World Intellectual Property Organisation. It lost its claim, but also had its name ridiculed in the international media.