Deadspin: Dan Gilbert Got Yahoo To Delete a Post

The website Deadspin claims that Dan Gilbert, the Quicken Loans founder, got Yahoo to delete a post last year that made a snarky remark about his company being a predatory lender.

Gilbert apparently didn't see the humor. Kevin Draper of Deadspin writes:

It's impossible to read the numerous lawsuits against the mortgage company and conclude otherwise. So when Kelly Dwyer, the editor of Yahoo's popular NBA blog Ball Don't Lie, made an offhand joke about that fact in a post last year, he would have had no reason to think twice.

The owner of Quicken Loans, though, is Dan Gilbert, also owner of the Cleveland Cavaliers and a man whose vanity is exceeded only by his pettiness. According to multiple sources, after Gilbert read Dwyer's post, he and his chief legal counsel called Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer directly to complain about a snarky line that read something like "Predatory Lender Quicken Loans Arena." We're not sure precisely what it said, because barely any traces of it remain online. Mayer ordered the post deleted immediately.

This wasn't just a case of Mayer responding to the whim of a powerful businessman by pitching something unflattering down the well. Not only had Gilbert's Quicken Loans just become a brand partner of Mayer's Yahoo, but this incident immediately followed on a series of corporate maneuvers seemingly designed to make Yahoo's newsroom an instrument of its marketing operation. The system did not malfunction; the system worked as designed.