Clueless Ikea, you say? How clueless can a smart company be? We’re just about to find out. Apparently, Ikea sent a (relatively civil and mild) Cease and Desist letter to Jules, the person who’s been running IKEAhackers for the past 8 years. As a result of this, Jules will have to either take away all the ads from her website, which she can’t do because the website is now her full-time job, or move it to a new domain name.
What should Ikea have done?
The easy thing to do: chill out, don’t make a fuss about nothing, ask her to take away ads to competing companies and add affiliate links to Ikea.com instead and give her a very generous cut on sales. Also, send free IKEA furniture her way to have fun with :)
The gutsier one: quietly buy out Jules’ website for a few million Euros, and then hire her to a six-digit salary so she can keep doing full-time what she obviously loves doing and is so good at. Update: Apparently, they have decided to wise up. Good.