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Comment by dohertyjf | Hacker News Reader

Note: definitely worth reading the comments, especially from Sarah Bird (COO at Moz), and the Inbound thread and comments - http://www.inbound.org/articles/view/how-seomoz-sent-us-a-ta...

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So apparently you worked for seomoz, and maybe you currently work for moz. Why not disclose that? http://www.linkedin.com/in/johnfdoherty

Those comments don't make seomoz look any better. Look at the date when doz.com was purchased.

I'm a Global Associate for Moz and I work for Distilled, who took over Moz's consulting business when they went fulltime in SAAS.

edited because I was a jerk

Next, doesn't matter when the domain was purchased. What matters is the date that the trademark, or the intent to use a trademark, was filed.

I never said that you denied it. I said that you failed to disclose it in your comment. My earlier comment was just a friendly reminder but since you went uppercase on me I'll add that you should know better because of the industry you work in.

You are correct, I did. Thanks for the reminder, though a statement like "Why not disclose that?" is, most of the time, taken as accusatory and not friendly. But this is not the place for such debates. Let's talk about copyright legalities :-)

a statement like "Why not disclose that?" is, most of the time, taken as accusatory and not friendly.

No it isn't, but it belies a defensiveness and paranoia that you interpret it that way. Why not take it at face value?

I didn't mean to be harsh in my initial reply, and questions are a way to avoid being harsh. If you see yourself often using this HN account to talk about seomoz I suggest putting it in your HN profile, that way if you don't disclose in a future comment, the next person may just make a note. In fact I thought of doing that but didn't, partly because I was curious whether you still worked for Moz, because in most places, like your blog, it just says "Distilled".

And your comment is pretty neutral on the face of it, but if you read between the lines it's a defense of seomoz. That's why I wondered if you were connected to them, since you left the first comment it seemed that you may have received a google alert.

Apology accepted.

Fair enough. Thanks for the clarification, Ben. Will add Global Associate at Moz to my profile here.

Thanks Ben. Didn't realize it was against rules to not disclose that I'm affiliated with Moz. Will correct in the future.

You need rules to guide you on the fact that when you wade into a comment thread about the company you work for, its probably best to make that fact obvious?

He doesn't work for Moz, but I do. John is a "Moz Global Associate", but doesn't get paid by Moz. I however have commented a couple times and assumed my responses were enough to display I work there. But I should have definitely stated it more clearly as well.

I'd say we're not trying to "look any better" we just want to be sure both sides of the situation are out there.

You work for Moz too. The whole Moz company is here defending yourselves without identifying your employer.

She did say "we're", it was pretty obvious to me that she identified with Moz

Yep, that's why I said we. :)

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