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Comment by seszett | Hacker News Reader

It's a bit of a shame that Fluke uses Facebook for publishing official statements.

Other than that... well, good reaction from Fluke. I'd say all events, from seizing the multimeters to the resolution today, unfolded in the best way possible.

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Explain to me why it's a shame to have used Facebook?

Facebook isn't the web. Its a siloed private service. A company the size and reputation of Fluke should have their very own website that they can put messages like that on. Otherwise, they're merely giving facebook revenue by having that many more pageview opportunities to show everybody ads.

You don't need to be logged in to view the post.

You still have to visit facebook.

It hasn't been explicitly stated yet, and may not be apparent to everyone, but it's blocked in some networks. It's not just a case of "I despise Facebook so much I refuse to visit it."

That's a very valid point. Hadn't considered that.

Yeah, but I won't read it if it's on facebook. And I'm like reeeeaaallly important to this company.

...

In all seriousness, I know my opinion matters very little, but I just don't visit facebook for reasons.

This has been true for this post, but there have been many "view this on facebook" posts that do block you with a signup.

Twitter seems to do this too (frequently I'm prompted to log in.)

Bah, I want my ye olde internet back.

I thought it was a shame for a different reason. Given I'm far from an avid Facebook user these days, the UI led me to believe this whole thing was a statement being made by Facebook, until I got to the very end of the letter: "Signed, Fluke Corporation."

Was very confused about Facebook talking so much about hardware.

So you didn't notice the big Fluke logo in the top right? (perhaps it's not present on mobile?)

I didn't notice until after you mentioned it. That said, at first I thought the letter was from SparkFun so maybe I'm not very awake today!

I thought it was from Sparkfun as well, but it's also early and I didn't know of the situation until reading this response.

For me it's a shame because I have blocked Facebook, so I can't see it. But isn't it always "Login-Walled", in that you can only see stuff as a registered Facebook user?

Any pages marked as "Public" are accessible without a login. As soon as you put any restrictions on the audience, it makes everyone log in to check them against the list.

Apart from the part where the law turned out to be so broken to make it happen...

Indeed. But given that the law is what it is, this is a fairly good response from Fluke. More than I expected, TBH.

Its not broken if you consider it protecting the companies of the united states from knock offs. That company that made those multimeters had the full rainbow of colors and an infinite choice of shapes, dials, displays to choose from. They basically decided fluke was great, copied almost everything, sold it cheaper.

If it were your product, which was a high quality product, and some cheap knock offs came in with basically everything the same but the label... you would not be happy.

Oh come on. Every multimeter I've ever owned was yellow. The Sparkfun multimeters look like every other cheap multimeter, and decidedly unlike Fluke's. It's not even the same damn shade of yellow.

This is pointless waste and a huge scandal.

  Every multimeter I've ever owned was yellow.

Fluke is yellow border with a dark gray/black face. Not 'yellow multimeter'.

Does that mean Fluke forfeits the right to try and stop the flow of knockoff products?

Did you miss where I said "The Sparkfun multimeters look like every other cheap multimeter, and decidedly unlike Fluke's"? I reject the premise that any yellow multimeter is a "knockoff product". You can buy similar multimeters in any Radio Shack in the world.

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