Visitors to the GottaDeal.com Forum this morning got a scare when the forums were taken down due to routine maintenance.

During a scheduled forum upgrade overnight, the staff placed a frightening yet humorous message on their outage page:

Due to legal action, the forum is now closed
No, just kidding. Seriously, we’re just doing an upgrade of the forum software. It could take a few hours, so find something better to do with your time until then. Maybe grab a book. Nobody reads anymore. Why is that? Oh well. See you in a few hours.

When I checked again several minutes later, a more prominent message was displayed above, informing visitors that the site was undergoing maintenance.

Good one, GottaDeal. You got me for a solid five seconds . . . but can you blame me for being fooled? With companies like Wal-Mart getting more and more aggressive against Black Friday websites each year, it’s just a matter of time until this isn’t a joke. Scary, isn’t it?

In an unprecedented move, Wal-Mart sent preemptive cease and desist orders to the large Black Friday websites via the legal firm Baker & Hostetler LLP.

From this action, we can presume that:

• Wal-Mart believes that competitors will alter their Black Friday sales based on the content of leaked Wal-Mart sales.
• Wal-Mart believes that competitors can only obtain the leaked information from a Black Friday website.
• Wal-Mart does not appreciate diligent Black Friday shoppers who seek out ads early.

And really, why should Wal-Mart appreciate the diligent shopper? The business of Black Friday is based on a few basic principles, but the two greatest ones are these:

1. Many shoppers will buy more than just the best bargains while shopping on Black Friday.
2. Many shoppers will never send in their rebates on rebated items.

Since diligent Black Friday shoppers scope out only the best deals, rarely buy much else, and send in all the rebates, we don’t fall into their moneymaking traps. And that’s exactly the way we like it.

I declare a boycott on Wal-Mart this Black Friday. This doesn’t affect Wal-Mart much: Any such boycott will not affect Wal-Mart in any substantial way because most of the uninformed Black Friday shoppers head to Wal-Mart or Target. (I should note that many informed BF shoppers head to these stores as well, but only when it’s in their best interests.) I’m declaring this boycott mostly out of convenience because it really doesn’t affect me much. As a personal rule, I refuse to head to Wal-Mart or Best Buy on the morning of Black Friday for other reasons. Since I have mentioned Best Buy, it should be noted that they have been quoted as saying they will not bother with tracking down Black Friday ad sites to have their ads removed.

Objectively, this cease and desist order is simply a nuisance and not much else. In 2006, the Wal-Mart ad was leaked 15 days before Black Friday and now we’ll have to wait 12 extra days or so to see it. This simply means less organized planning time for those expecting to head to Wal-Mart on Black Friday.