Lidl Product Recall [pdf]
lidl.co.uk
lidl.co.uk
It seems the domain in question was one of many involved in IP infringement against a global fashion brand long before I came along. A simple check of registrar data would confirm I have f all to do with this.
Either some big law firm knows different from you or are just scamming their client? Surely this can not be the case?
The site was being used to do some bad thing to their clients, they're justified in assuming the current owner might know something about it. Changing registrars and WHOIS info is exactly the kind of thing a shady site might do to throw off investigation. If you're fortunate, you'll at least get your reply read by someone who can understand the plain English of "it wasn't me, I bought the site since then" and doing a bit of research to cross check that.
If I keep everything in one or a small amount of production domains, even if a product is shut down, a project ends, and everyone has long forgotten about it - it's still hitting my load balancers and I can deal with it. Cheaply, too. Some 404 pages delivered by a loadbalancer probably cost cents or less per month. I can also make it a cute branded image based on a few conditions as well if you give me that.
And some POs are arguing how this is controlling and how this might be constricting freedom and such. And, yes it is. But on the other hand, we won't have porn hosted on something the company once promoted. Unless the company wants to rebrand as such.
But easier for every team to grab a new domain.
I guess it'd be hard to get companies to use such a service, except for situations that cause product issues like this one we're seeing.
IDK if any of these services support custom domains. So that you could have qr.mycompany.example or whatever. That way if something goes wrong with the service you can at least direct it to something else.
But I think in general you should control your URLs. Especially for printed material. Often this would be something like a short URL or some other small name that can be directed to the intended final site and changed at any point.
There are some shady QR code generation sites on the Internet that produce codes that work for a week or so, but go to some unexpected third-party domain that redirects to your site. Later, you find out that you have to pay them a subscription fee if you want the QR code to keep working.
This is just one factor in a multitude of reasons why single-use plastics are wasteful, but I believe that if a company is not responsible enough to look after a URL they should not be plastering it all over consumer products.
A URL is for life, not just for Christmas. Not sure whether to link to the Dogs Trust or the W3C here!
I'd assume it's more damage control in the event someone actually does visit the URL because then they can say, "well we have recalled these products, sir".
Nobody will repackage the biscuits. That is not a thing any manufacturer or merchant would seriously consider. Of course it will be disposed of.
Just imagine the liability of selling a food product which already come back from a costumer.
The biscuits may very well have simply been a flytrap of sorts (honey), or loss-leader. Disposing of them given that the URL is itself no longer useful might well be the pragmatic approach.
I also doubt the public will return sold product, though they might take actions against the packaging itself. I'd hope that unsold stock will be diverted to food banks or other noncommercial distributors, though possibly with a provision that packaging be covered (stickers or labels?) or removed prior to final distribution.
Cost will be some fraction of the retail price. But that's coming from a streamlined production + packaging pipeline.
As soon as you'd choose to repackage product, then you need a whole lot of hands (people) to do that. And then cost of repackaged product easily goes to 2..5x what it was on the first run.
That's not worth it for manufacturer. Profit is lost on that batch, disposal is the next cheapest option.
Sometimes there are alternatives, like food banks, or use as cattle feed. But often not (or manufacturer is too lazy / doesn't care).
The pragmatic approach would be to put a small piece of opaque tape over the offending text and put the product back on the shelves. I've seen that happen with nutritional information on imported products, where the original label printed on the packaging presumably didn't meet the legal requirements and thus a new one was put over it.
This is just one factor in a multitude of reasons why single-use plastics are wasteful
IMHO that's not the real worry here --- that would've ended up in landfill or been incinerated anyway regardless of the recall, and it's a tiny amount of waste relative to the rest of the otherwise usable product.
Because otherwise, this becomes an increasingly futile (and frustrating) Quixotic quest.
Seems like one of these automated domain-takeover attacks: watch for expiring domains, snap them up the moment they expire, replace them with porn ads, profit.
Looks like someone ignored the domain expiration emails.
I see that constantly, especially where there's high turnover.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PAW_Patrol
> PAW Patrol is a Canadian computer-animated children's television series
> The series has been sold to TV networks in over 160 countries.
> In 2016, the season two episode "Pups Save a Mer-Pup" was nominated for Best Animated Television/Broadcast Production for Preschool Children in the 43rd Annie Awards. As of 2023, PAW Patrol has received twenty five Canadian Screen Award nominations with twenty wins.
It is cheaper for Lidl just to donate a new batch without the URL and destroy the affected batch… The best thing one can hope for is that these end up on the break room table at Lidl shops, but there are probably rules that prevent that too.
---
Important Notice: Product Recall
Paw Patrol All Butter Mini Biscotti Biscuits x 5
Paw Patrol Choc Chip Mini Biscotti Biscuits x 5
Paw Patrol Yummy Bake Bars Raspberry Flavour x 5
Paw Patrol Yummy Bake Bars Apple Flavour x 5
Batch affected: All stock
• Lidl GB is recalling the above-mentioned branded product as we have been made aware that the URL of the supplier which is featured on the back of the packaging has been compromised and is being directed to a site that is not suitable for child consumption.
• We recommend that customers refrain from viewing the URL and return this product to the nearest store where a full refund will be given.
We apologise for any inconvenience caused and thank you for your cooperation.
I hope not many people are reading a comment section before article.
Saves me not just a click, but lots of time reading lesser quality articles too.
I may or may not risk a click at all if there are no comments.
I do read the article before commenting though. (Well.... not this time, but it's kind of a meta topic)
Though Bluey is definitely the better product.
Bluey is still king to me, but Pupstruction being centered around construction rather than law enforcement is a positive distinction in my eyes.
France just had weeks of riots because the police shot Nahel Merzouk [1] due to similar dynamics that have been developing in France since at least the Algerian crisis [2]. I don't know if "spending most time" is a fair characterization of French minorities' perception but the antagonistic relationship between police and minorities is far from a US only problem.
I think with US suburban sprawl it's just a lot easier to ignore what's going on in the cities.
If he did go around pointing is gun at immigrants that would be the opposite of police propaganda wouldn't it? Most young kids don't interact with police directly, so nearly everything they know about police comes from the media they consume. The question comes down to what kids need to learn about police and what role media plays in that education. Families in certain communities have been educating their children on how dangerous police are for a very long time.
Is it better to introduce an idealized version of police to kids and let them learn on their own that police are dangerous or is it better to present police in children's media realistically so that they're prepared when they see their 8 year old classmate thrown to the ground, handcuffed, and arrested because they acted up in class or so they understand when they see protesters march past their house because police officers beat and murdered another person on camera without consequences?
I suspect that it's better to show kids what police are supposed to be like before introducing them to the harsher reality we live in, but I can't blame people for looking at shows like Paw Patrol and thinking that it's giving kids a very unrealistic view of policing at a time when they should be increasingly made aware of the issues and the risks they face.
as terrible as it is if we focus on the whole developed world “we” is just a tiny minority (even in the US, just unfortunately not as tiny…)
> unrealistic view of policing
so maybe they could do a separate version for Americans?
Maple syrup was already here
God damn it’s good. It’d be a solid choice for a lazy Saturday afternoon of getting baked and zoning out on TV, even for those without kids. Mellow, funny, you get little wins to root for, and some fun bits that go over kids’ heads. Rare for a show targeted that young to be as appealing to (or, at least, tolerable for) adults. Far better than, say, Daniel Tiger, which is already well above the bottom tier of that kind of show.
[edit] incidentally, I think Fred Rogers would have been disgusted by all the heavy-handed auto tune in Daniel Tiger. Giving kids a wildly incorrect model of what ordinary, real human singing sounds like strikes me as the kind of thing that would have prompted him to bring down the “no” hammer on his own show in a damn hurry, if someone had suggested it. Bugs me every time I watch it.
Although it does have the quite objective advantage of not being overstimulating. Most current cartoons look overwhelmingly overstimulating for me as an adult, and move at such a fast pace that in some I can barely follow the action, and we throw them at small kids...
- Baby Race
- Bike
- Camping
- Flat Pack (how do they tell a story that deep in six minutes?!)
- Sleepytime (yep, welling up just thinking about it now)
- Rain
- Granddad
I love animation so I end up watching a ton of cartoons and I have to agree that shows these days can move way too fast. You can tell a whole story in a 5-15 minute episode, but telling a story well in that time takes serious talent and I'd love to see what talented writers like that could do with a story that had room to breathe.
It matters a lot less for shows with little if any continuity but serious story telling needs a lot more time. I'd feel better about it if there were a bunch of animated shows with 40-60 run times to balance things out.
One good thing I'll say about hyper-fast paced animation is that it forces the audience to fill in a lot of blanks on their own. That could engage a kid's imagination if they take the time. I get the feeling that it's the older audiences who tend to go nuts with that though.
My friend's son LOVES Bluey. When it's on TV or a phone he'll stare at it without blinking for as long as it's on. I didn't notice it until another friend asked why he was crying and his dad told us he just doesn't blink when Bluey is on.
My son does like it quite a lot, and it prefers it to many others such as Dora, Spongebob, Paw Patrol or the infamous Peppa Pig, but he will choose PJ Masks or Superkitties over Bluey, and those two I find... not very good, to be honest. Especially Superkitties.
Your friend's son has great taste in cartoons, although not blinking might be taking it a bit too far :)
You can tell that it is made with love.
I think if my daughters weren’t watching it, I would watch it alone.
At this point in Poland we have a Paw Patrol variant of literally anything a kid could use or consume - from regular and electric toothbrushes, through clothes, sheets, toys, shower gels, food, beverages. Whatever you think of, there's a version with a Paw Patrol dog being sold somewhere.
There is a full feature paw patrol movie in which one of the characters breaks the fourth wall and says "How can we afford this? Licenced paw patrol merchandise!". And all the parents in the audience groan.
It's pure, unadulterated kiddy crack
The show is innocent enough that nobody will complain about it, so it's a clever marketing strategy.
Maybe in some EU countries, I guess. In Spain, toy ads are common. Recently, the government prohibited toy ads that are segmented by sex (e.g. marketing dolls or toy kitchens specifically for girls) but otherwise there are no limits as far as I know.
Seems to have been used on multiple sites and when a site loads js from a compromised site you can do anything on the site.
I reported it four times and after 6 months they still didn't fix it.
https://blog.haschek.at/2019/threat-vector-legacy-static-web...
Given the foodi-ness, surely 'consumption' could have been a better word. Oh, I don't know..."viewing"?