Baker & McKenzie is currently on the receiving end of an internet backlash after allegedly using rather heavy handed tactics against a Canberra blogger and Hasbro NERF gun obsessive.

For anyone who's not eight years old or a "kidult" blogger, NERF guns are plastic weapons which shoot foam darts. In 2010 Martyn Yang, a Canberra public servant by day and toy weapon enthusiast by night, started the fanblog Urban Taggers. He used his popular site to post pictures and reviews of the very latest in NERF gun technology including unreleased models, which is where his trouble started.

In March Yang was emailed by a Hasbro PR offering him a stash of NERF guns to give away as prizes; all Hasbro needed was an address which Yang duly provided. But instead of the toys, it was a Baker & McKenzie letter before action which landed on Yang's doormat. Bakers demanded that Yang take down images he had posted of the unreleased N-Strike Elite "Rampage" Blaster and cough up the contact details of the source who'd supplied information on the gun.

Yang dutifully took down the images but said most of his tip offs were anonymous ("people rarely use real names unless you know someone in real life named spunkypineapplehead666"), before giving Bakers a quick lesson about the internet, where information on the guns was readily available. But three weeks later Yang claims he returned home to find a Bakers' "goon squad" waiting to question him and demanding he show them how to access internet sites that sold the guns, according to a Crikey report.

A Bakers' lawyer yesterday (an artist's impression)

The blogger has now referred the matter to the Office of the NSW Legal Commissioner and is "seeking redress" from the law firm. Meanwhile the blogging community is calling for a boycott of Hasbro products. Bakers has declined to comment on the investigation into Yang, as has Hasbro which will only say that it "takes all circumstances of its stolen and leaked IP very seriously."