In a day and age when the mainstream media stands accused of spinning reality every bit as much as the citizen journalist, where lawyer's threatening emails fly to suppress the opinions of the public daily. The new line between the professional and the amateur is often the moral backbone to stand up and fight for their rights. Such is the case of Lance Dutson who has accused the Maine Office of Tourism and their advertising agency of Internet Ineptitude. The result is a litany of harassment, a 3 count multi-million dollar federal lawsuit, and the first Media Bloggers Association alert.

While many businesses have sought to harness word of mouth viral marketing, all too many resort to threats and legal intimidation when those efforts go astray or in this case are simply questioned. They take a gamble, will they cave and retract or have I just tried to douse the fire with 300 gallons of kerosene? The explosions are quite entertaining and colorful, they stretch around the world from blog to blog and news site to news site. Leaving a public relations disaster in their wake.

At the center of this case is the charge that the tourism campaign largely amounted to starting a bidding war with local Maine businesses for search engine pay-per-click placement. A real geek sees the flaw to this strategy immediately, traffic is generated not by ad dollars but by utility value, which then is voted on as traffic, links to your site from 3rd parties and a community of participants. The paid for ad placement pay-per-click has never held a candle to the real search returns and real utility value. The public is not stupid and exposure doesn't equate to value.

Rather then further develop a truly entertaining website and a helpful community of real people giving real advise, they have opted for a soulless repository of facts. Adopting an outmoded but lucrative advertising contract wherein they pocket commissions for "ad placement" to drive traffic and worse at the expense of their own constituents. Then fail to understand the new reality of the citizen journalist, often the source of both more intimate knowledge and thoughtful opinion than the mainstream press is comfortable with. Or just possibly, asking questions they think better left alone. In our best interests of course, we can't be trusted to weight the arguments ourselves.

Of the particulars of this case the courts will decide, but the main charge of "Internet Ineptitude" is self evident. Court's adjourned.Ice Czar is a reformed Spin Doctor and intimate of the advertising and marketing world for some 22 years.

UPDATE Warren Kremer Plano has withdrawn the lawsuit against Lance Dutson following a media blitz of bad press.

Bob Cox, Ron Coleman, and the Media Bloggers Association moves to a perfect 10-0 against this type of corporate bullying, and the world is now even more aware of the force that the blogosphere has become.

Meanwhile the political juggernaut is gearing up to determine what all the ruckus was about.

Maine State representative Stephen Bowen has called for a a full investigation into the management of both the Maine Office of Tourism (MOT) and the contractors it hires to produce tourism materials for the state. In addition, in a letter to state Economic and Community Development Commissioner Jack Cashman, Rep. Bowen called for the Maine Office of Tourism to suspend its contract with WKP, pending the results of the lawsuit.

Who knows they may actually learn something from all this, and Id just bet that all this bad press has in fact driven considerable traffic to the website, as they say any press is good press. :p