Verizon Drops Suit Against 2600

askheaves writes "2600 has a quick article about how they are no longer in the hotseat over their registration of the domain name verizonreallysucks.com. Seems that Verizon laid out a blanket of letters to 200 domain holders with Verizon in the name. They retracted in this particular case since it was not an example of domain squatting, like they had originally thought."

could it be the other domain they registered?

[Anonymous Coward]

2600 also owns "verizonshouldspendlessmoneyonlawyersandmoretimeup gradingtheirnetworks.com". Could that be what persuaded them to drop suit? :)

Verizon does suck

[Col. Klink (retired)]

I've been without any telephone at home since August 28 because Verizon is still playing catch up after the strike.

If they treat their employees like they treat their customers, I'm not surprised they went on strike. According to ads run during the strike, managers used to follow employees to the bathroom. Still, I'd let them watch me piss if I could get a phone in less than 3 weeks.

I can't believe this!

[GMontag]

I am VERY GLAD that Verizon appears to show some common sense in this area, since it is obviously not a case of squatting. It is a case of dissatisfaction.

Perhaps this is an instance where a legal department needs to give customer service a lesson?

Visit DC2600 [dc2600.com]

Re:Horay (what they did wrong)

[GMontag]

It began as something about Verizon forming as a telcom merger.

Any company that gets big pisses off Emmanuel of 2600, so 2600 bought the domain in question as a form protest. Not saying that in a mean way or anything, it is just the position Emmanuel usually takes on matters like this. I might call it a form of opinion voicing rather than "protest" and even though I would not go to these lengths on this particular issue, I believe Emmanuel should be allowed to do it without being messed with.

Then Verizon sent 2600 an official mean letter telling them that they would be the subject of legal action if they did not give up the domain.

Now, after examining all of the downsides to doing something this stupid, Verizon is backing off.

That's about it.

Visit DC2600 [dc2600.com]

Re:And there's more

[toast0]

thats probably to migrate gtesuperpages over, its just a phone book online thing

And there's more

[byoon]

The real reason Emmanuel registered that name was because Verizon had already gone out and registered verizonsucks.com and such gems as verizon-shits.com,.net, and .org. In the last issue of 2600 they list all 706 domains registered by verizon and it makes pretty good reading. Here's my favorite: wwwverizonsuperpages.org. Whatever that is.

Horay

[luckykaa]

Not only are they being sensible, but they seem sto support freedom of speech. What did they do wrong in the first place again?

The right thing!

[www.sorehands.com]

It's good to see a large corporation doing the right thing.

Even if the company thought that their trademark was being infringed on and that they had to do something to protect their rights from becomming a common word, there are better ways then spending money on lawyers and clogging up courts.

Re:Verizon Does Suck

[coulbc]

I totally agree. VERIZON is piss poor at customer service. I have had ISDN, T-spans, cellular and local service from them and it's murder on the patience. They cannot seem to get anything right. When Bell Atlantic and GTE merged, (Verizon) things got even worse. Since I just moved to an area that was GTE, when I called for a new install...All hell broke loose. They actually write down my address, go to another room (gte computers) to pull up my info, print it and then come back to the room with the printout so they can put it into the Bell Atlantic computers! Then due to the strike, It took 3 F$^#$%^$#@# weeks to get a telephone at my new residence. They do not have any cell sites in the area so my cell phone was useless during that time. My wife was about to kill, kill, kill. VERIZON SUCKS.

No money wasted....

[Crewd]

Excellent...this means that there won't be any EFF funds going to waste on such a petty court case. We need to keep those funds around for real violations of civil liberties.

Quick Clarification

[askheaves]

As far as I can tell, it wasn't an actual lawsuit, so much as it was a 'nasty' letter sent to the sites informing them of the possiblity of legal action... that's what I gleaned, at least.

Real reason

[crushinator]

I think the real reason that Verizon backed off is because they didn't like the prospect of taking 2600 to court and having VerizonShouldSpendMoreTimeFixingItsNetworkAndLessM oneyOnLawyers.com [verizonsho...awyers.com] be brought to issue, along with all the hypocrisy that comes with serving papers to net squatters after batch-registering (and not using) dozens of domain names of their own.

Remember that Verizon preemptively registered many, many other domain names for themselves, including the original verizonsucks.com [networksolutions.com], plus verizonblows.com [networksolutions.com] and countless others. And there's nothing on those [verizonsucks.com] sites [verizonblows.com], and there almost certainly never will be.

I would suggest to those who are saying "At last, a big corporation does something good!" that they are at best doing the right thing for the wong reason but more likely paying off their noisiest opponent to effectively silence dissidence.

They have managed to avoid a court case, to avoid bad PR, and to avoid the net squatting issue completely without too much media attention. And they still own most of the best names for protest sites. Not exactly cause for celebration.

Re:could it be the other domain they registered?

[joepits]

Who modded the previous down? It is not only true, it is a little bit funny.