There are several reasons why a post on OzBargain gets unpublished, i.e. in a state that only the original poster and moderator can see, and will be automatically purged from the database if not being republished after 90 days. For example,

• It’s a duplicate of an old post.
• It’s violating our terms and services
• It’s spammy
• Someone else requested it to be taken down

Yes. We do have other parties, mostly merchants themselves or their representing media party, request some posts to be removed from OzBargain. Most common reason is that the “deal” itself is exclusive to their subscribers and is not opened to public. At OzBargain we would like to work with both the shoppers and merchants, and we understand that an invite-only private promotion with limited number now exposed to the public is probably going to do no good to both the shoppers and the merchants. Usually we are happy to take those posts down at receiving of take down notices — but asking without threatening would be the preferred way to do it.

So we had 3 take down notices this week —

Monday

Got an email at around 1pm. Got another email at 3pm saying “online voucher URGENT”. Then the body of the email contains that threatening take down notice. Here’s an excerpt:

This voucher was unauthorized and we have been advised to inform you that we will contact ASIC and further prosecution may be deemed necessary, should you fail to do this.

Wow. ASIC? Prosecution? And no where in the email contains the actual URL of the deal posted on OzBargain, so I have to go and find it myself. Since I am such a chicken I took the voucher down immediately. But hey, I don’t like to be threatened.

Tuesday

Got another email today asking me to contact her about “advertising vouchers on your website”. Yeah? What does that mean? So I wrote back. What fired back to me was an angry email. It turns out that a voucher posted on OzBargain back in February is a fake, or photoshopped, which caused their cashiers a lot of confusion.

Cool. That’s fine. We don’t like fake vouchers either. So I removed the PDF containing the voucher, and put a notice on that deal. However, when you ask people to do things, ask them nicely.

Wednesday

Must be my lucky week because I had received take down notices 3 days in a row! This time it’s someone at Expedia, a big online travel agency. They have launched a promotion to a specially segmented group of Expedia customers to have free SMH or Sun Herald subscription. Somehow this got posted on OzBargain so they are asking for it to be removed.

Different from those on Monday and Tuesday, she explained the matter clearly, and asked OzBargain politely.

Although it’s great to see our brand communicated virally, this offer is only available to Expedia newsletter subscribers and the terms & conditions of the promotion reflect this, so no further people are eligible to register for this promotion.

I contact you with the request to remove the above mentioned post from the Ozbargain.com.au website immediately, to ensure that non Expedia customers and Ozbargain visitors will not be disappointed.

Yup. It’s looking out for all the parties — Expedia, their customers, OzBargain, and our visitors. 3 minutes later, the offer is unpublished with a comment explaining the reason.

So, if your promotions got posted on OzBargain and you wish to take them down — send contact me about it — I am more than happy to find a way to work it out for you and for our members and visitors. You might need to prove that your company is related to that offer though (from your email address for example). Also, ask politely — it will get things done faster.

Another note for our OzBargain members. Almost everyone with the take down notice asks me who posted their offers. With our privacy policy — don’t worry, they won’t have your details.