Walmart – Black Friday – Bitter Fights…

A few weeks ago, a friend of mine forwarded me a note from Walmart that pointed out there will be serious repercussions for folks who disclose Walmart Black Friday deals in advance. Walmart has been extremely upset about the leaks that happened in the past couple of years, and this year was supposed to be the year that they would clamp down on these leaks and bring the element of surprise back to Black Friday.

But the leaks have happened again, and Walmart is upset about it. Search Engine Journal reports that someone’s going to pay if Walmart gets its wish. Now here is my problem with this whole issue. If someone puts Walmarts ads online, shouldn’t you be able to link to it? The way Walmart threatens to go after people indicates that you should be careful about who you link to these days. I get that you should not link to link farms and blog spams if you hope to keep your ranking on the SERPs. But I am not sure threatening folks to give up their sources is one way to go.

Walmart is trying to keep deals from leaking out, but who is leaking these deals? It’s either the Walmart folks or someone who has ears on the doors. I personally don’t believe folks should be responsible for talking about leaked Walmart deals. But then again, I thought folks should not be responsible for linking to torrent sites. Boy was I wrong!