SATOWNS

Despite rumours a week or so ago, Donn Edwards has only today reached agreement with Quality Vacation Club, the QVC Management Association and Ian Wilcocks. According to the Facebook group set up to support Donn:

Please can you pass on my thanks to everyone who joined the FB group, wrote blog articles, sent messages of support, and so on. The case really has been an ordeal for me, and just knowing there were over 300 people supporting me was brilliant.

I met with Ian Wilcox and John Meyer from QVC at the Midrand Protea Hotel. There were no lawyers and the meeting went extremely well. We all needed to come to an agreement that we could be happy with, and not leave feeling bitter. The agreement we drew up and signed (using a laptop and a portable printer) is the best we could manage, and I’m happy with it.

I have removed the articles and references from my blog, and the court cases are being suspended for 5 years. Provided I don’t write derogatory things about QVC in that time, the cases will be allowed to lapse, and no harm is done.

Bear in mind that my initial visit to QVC was 18 months ago, and much has changed during that time, including the way they do their marketing. Whether I agree with the way they do business or not is irrelevant: they changed in response to my complaints, and the complaints of others, and had I known that I would not have written further articles in August and September last year.

I think the blogger community has done a great job in highlighting this issue, and I thank everyone who participated. We have all learnt a great deal. I request that the current facebook group be closed in order to help me keep to my side of the agreement. I realise I can’t insist on this, but the group was there to provide support, and it has done so in a wonderful and effective way.

I have seen the settlement agreement that was signed and while I am relieved that Donn doesn’t have the threat of this litigation hanging over his head, it was not a good outcome for free expression in South Africa. It effectively gags Donn and requires that anything he has written about QVC be removed from his blog. What is also odd about the settlement is that the case pending against Donn is suspended for 5 years and can presumably be continued should Donn be seen to be violating the terms of his settlement in that time. This is not a common type of settlement. Cases are usually withdrawn in the event of a settlement, not suspended. As much as he doesn’t have ongoing proceedings in the back of his mind, proceeding with the case and finalising it may turn out to have been a better option than this legal form of Chinese water torture.

The difficulty with this case from the outset is that it was a case of David and Goliath. On the one hand you had a blogger who used his blog to express his opinion about QVC and the poor service he experienced from that company and on the other hand you have a company with the resources to prosecute this sort of costly litigation, irrespective of the merits of the litigation.

In blogging about QVC, Donn touched on an experience a large number of us share at the hands of QVC and similar organisations in South Africa. Their marketing tactics are underhand and frustrating. I have received calls every year for the last few years based on a competition I was stupid enough to enter on the spur of the moment in a shopping mall. Despite demanding to be removed from the company’s database, I am called over and over again with the same bad information. This case could have addressed those practices very publicly and, at the same time, given some substance to bloggers’ freedom of expression.

If anything this case highlights the need for a better option for bloggers who are persecuted for exercising their democratic rights. The Freedom of Expression Institute has as its purpose to “promote the objectives of the FXI of freedom of expression and access to information through providing legal services for litigation and precedent setting cases in relation to freedom of expression.” Unfortunately its resources are very limited and it simply can’t afford to take on many of the cases it should. What we need is an organisation that has the kinds of resources we see in the Electronic Freedom Foundation in the United States and which will take on these sorts of cases and even intervene in important cases where their input is necessary. This may mean funding the FXI better or creating a new organisation altogether.

The outcome of cases like this should be different. Companies should not be able to take interim orders censoring free and legitimate expression and they should face stiff opposition to any attempts to prevent people from legitimately exercising their right to freedom of expression. Heather Ford has called for an organisation to monitor freedom of expression in South Africa and I think that such an organisation is very necessary, especially if the QVC case is any indication of things to come.

Quite a few members of QVC are very upset! Members are not getting what they paid for according to some reports and emails.

All members of QVC should come foreward to settle this problem.

Unhappy QVC members can email or contact :

 Keywords: Don Edwards, Donn Edwards, QVC, Quality Vacation Club, Scams, Scam,

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