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The Courts Government News Your Rights Online

"sucks".com Sites Win Legal Victory 121

Posted by timothy from the doesn't-necssarily-suck dept.
amyandjake writes: "Dan Parisi (sucks.com) wins a courtroom battle to keep Michaelbloombergsucks.com instead of giving it to Bloomberg." I'll admit that I used to consider the dot-sucks domains to have few redeeming qualities, but the efforts to take them away have helped change my mind about them. Bloomberg can spare a few dollars to register danparisisucks.com, can't he?
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"sucks".com Sites Win Legal Victory More

"sucks".com Sites Win Legal Victory

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  • www.slashdotsucks.org (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    www.slashdotsucks.org! (FP!)

  • Re:This whole issue is grey (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I think you could clearly argue that the intent of a typo-domain name is to confuse the public. The user did not intentionally type yahooo.com. However, the case of yahoosucks.com, is clearly different. yahoosucks.com is not easily mistaken for yahoo.com. The intent is not to confuse the public, the intent is to exercise freedom of speech in particular freedom. This will be allowed by the courts, expecially since freedom of speech is still a "preferred freedom" (although prehaps slightly less so than in the recent past)

  • Re:Rich kids (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Sorta reminds me of the olden days when people figured out they could create their own newsgroups. We then got bombarded with alt.my.roommate.mike.wears.the.same.underwear.ever y.day type groups.

  • Re:.sux (Score:2)

    by Masem ( 1171 )
    The only problem here is that, as an example, Ford could registere GM.sux, and then have a pro-Ford site siting there. And vice versa with Ford.sux and GM.

    Instead, no commercial entity should be allowed to register T.sux, and specific rules are written that .sux sites must in regard to free speech (eg critism or commentary about company/trademark T), and that the site must not be used to generate significant profit for the owner (eg I can't start amazon.sux as an complete alternative bookstore, though I could use banner ads and/or small gift items like t-shirts and mugs that advertize the site itself.

  • Suck (Score:1)

    by nickm ( 1468 )
    So it's a pity that these new web mediur zine thingummies all went out of bizness.

    When Ford managed to get a guy to give them fordsucks.com and $3,000 in handling fees, I figgerd the best thing for it would be for suck.com to sue Ford for violating their Intellectual Property.

    --
    I noticed

  • that you've got to think ahead when you create a website for your company. You need to register:

    ..snip..

    And so on and so on...

    Uhm, quite true. =) Personally I think this is just a symptom of how rotten to the core the .com/.net/.org domain space is these days. I think it's nice that anyone who needs a domain can get one, but the problem is, domains get registered when there's no need.

    How many of those you listed a real company would need? One. companyname.com, under which E-mail, corporate information, product information and all that will go nicely. How many most companies seem to register? All you listed, and then some (you forgot every product the company makes, too =)

    (I like .fi domains: Individuals can't register domains (subdomain is being planned), and corporations can get only one domain name per name that appears in National Board of Patents and Registration databases... I really can't speak of DNS pollution here!)

  • While the market isn't what it used to be (remember the heyday of domain name buying and reselling?), I wonder what the now defunct (or rather non-updating) suck.com [yafla.com] could get for their domain from most probably the adult industry.

  • You need to register:
    [snip]

    Why?

    It's a big world, and no matter who you are, it's pretty much guaranteed that somebody out there hates you to the core, and they feel like saying so.

    Is attempting to prevent the inevitable from happening, really an intelligent strategy?


    ---
  • "Dubya" went his route. He seems to agree with a lot of folks that Bush Blows. [bushblows.com]

    --
  • Yep. Cooties.com is already taken. E-Cooties.com seems to still be available, though. I wonder what they would sell.

    --
  • How about "fuck-network-solutions-in-the-ass.com"? Network Solutions reports that it is available for registration, and they also suugest that I register "myfuck-network-solutions-in-the-ass.com", "fuck-network-solutions-in-the-ass.net", and "fuck-network-solutions-in-the-asscentral.com"

    --

  • .sux (Score:4)

    by Black Parrot ( 19622 ) on Tuesday June 19, 2001 @07:07PM (#138859)

    What the world needs is a new .sux TLD, with an explict rule that if you hold the trademark on T, you can not own T.sux.

    --

  • The Crucial Difference (Score:4)

    by Mdog ( 25508 ) on Tuesday June 19, 2001 @07:15PM (#138860) Homepage
    The difference in this case is that the owner of the "sucks" domain *intended* for the site to be a place where people could complain. On the other hand, the people who lost their "sucks" cases had been found to just be in it for the money; i.e. buying it to get the trademark holder to buy it back from them.

    I tend to agree with the distinction.
  • Nice, but why no woc.zimwiz.com?
  • The link in your article works, but both times you refer to it in the text, you misspell it.

    Full of Javascript errors, according to IE5 [hack, spit]

    I don't know what wally world is, so apparently I'm a moron who should die.

    Your level of literacy is about what I'd expect from a small town in Wisconsin.

    If I was the kind of person who was offended easily, or could afford $30* I would be registering MinocquaSucksSucks.com.

    * have you any idea how much it costs to put all your stuff in a container and put it on a boat for a few weeks? Those sailors must be making a fortune!

    --
  • None of the contexts you mention have any impact on *sucks.com domains. The first example is just stupid; gee, now let's rationally discuss whether I can carve that statement in his chest. The second example is equally obvious; don't hack their websites and vandalize them. The third example is true only if you, Mr/Ms Context, ignore the fact that the context may be parody, in which case you are dead wrong. Bzzt. You lose for thrashing your own point (context). The fourth point is not trespassing unless they've asked you to leave.

    Context is important. Duh. Using *sucks.com to make a statement of personal viewpoint - or even facts damaging to the trademark holder if you can support them with evidence - is EXTREMELY cut and dried. It's a textbook case for first amdendment freedoms. Now stop being a pedant.

    Boss of nothin. Big deal.
    Son, go get daddy's hard plastic eyes.

  • If you bothered to read the story on /. (not even the link to the article, you would find out that Dan Parisi owns sucks.com. Its kinda sad when people can't even bother to read the top part of the screen before posting a reply...
  • I just don't get slashdot. CmdrTaco will routinely support typo-sites, most of which abuse trademarks for purely commercial reasons (such as advertising). Yet legitimate satire and criticism, which is clearly stated as such, appears to have "few redeeming qualities" in Timothy's eyes.

  • crappytire.com (Score:3)

    by Velox_SwiftFox ( 57902 ) on Tuesday June 19, 2001 @08:27PM (#138866)
    This is at least partially on topic I think...

    Does anyone have a link to the text of the ruling that Canadian Tire couldn't claim that the domain "crappytire.com" was an infringement of their trademark?

    I've heard a rumor the decision was handed down, but I haven't been able to hunt down exactly what resulted.

  • Saying "McDonalds sucks" or "GM sucks" is free speech. That's all there is to it

    No, that's not all there is to it. Context matters:

    • Walking up to the CEO of McD's and screaming "McDonalds sucks!" in his ear isn't free speech, it's assault.
    • Spraypainting "sucks" under a McDonalds sign isn't free speech, it's vandalism.
    • Taking out an ad in the paper showing the Golden Arches with "McDonalds Sucks" in the McD's font isn't free speech, it's trademark infringement.
    • Standing in the middle of a McD's restaurant and distributing leaflets that say "McDonalds Sucks" on them isn't free speech, it's tresspassing.

    Context is important, and using someone else's trademark in a domain name is not as cut and dried as you seem to imply.

  • Does this mean that 2600 can keep the domain names they created, like verizonsucks.com, et. al?
  • Well, I'm sure you could try to make all trademark-holders register under .tm, but the people of Turkmenistan might get a little upset...

  • Yeah but... (Score:4)

    by bjtuna ( 70129 ) <brian AT intercarve DOT net> on Tuesday June 19, 2001 @08:23PM (#138870) Homepage
    The thing about Michael Bloomberg is, he really does suck. He's chairman of the board of trustees at my school (Johns Hopkins University [jhu.edu]) and he does shit like, make anonymous donations even though everyone knows it's him, on orders that the money be spent for shit we don't need (like brick walkways, instead of, say, student services or online course registration). Plus, the school insists on naming everything after him: so far, we have the Bloomberg Center for Physics and Astronomy, and the Bloomberg School of Public Health.

    And now he thinks he can become mayor of NY. ~sigh~
  • I can't wait until kids with rich parents get into this. We'll end up with things like:

    www.davisisapoopoohead.com
    www.kennyhasgirlgerms.net

  • I own suckssucks.com. I thought it was going to be a cash-cow once Dan Parisi bought it for me for $250,000 like microsoftsucks.com, but I guess not. Makes me cry :(

    SucksSucks for sale! $8 OBO! :D
  • To avoid having to get the name backwards, why not get a palandromic name to start with? I went for one that rotates to be the same - zimwiz [zimwiz.com] - it can help make a good logo in the process =)

  • Both the crappytire decision and the michaelbloombergsucks decision are listed at domainbattles.com [domainbattles.com].

    The crappy tire decision links from this site:

    The site also has a link to the decision for the current topic:
    MichaelBloombergSucks.com complaint denied [arbforum.com] NAF decision

  • Then why is he running around registering all these other *sucks.com domain names? Just set up DNS and put all the trademarked names in the third level domain. It'd cost him a hell of a lot less money and I'd think it'd be a lot harder to sue someone over trademark violations in a third level domain.

  • Why doesn't the sucks.com guy... (Score:3)

    by Greyfox ( 87712 ) on Tuesday June 19, 2001 @08:47PM (#138876) Homepage Journal
    Why doesn't the guy who owns sucks.com get into this game? (company).sucks.com would be a LOT harder to argue with than (company)sucks.com. It's a lot more readable too. sucks.com could become the suckage clearing house for the entire internet if only the guy had a little vision.
  • ..oops! There went my karma. :-(
  • Um, that is this guy...

  • Re:Just goes to show... (Score:3)

    by Tiroth ( 95112 ) on Tuesday June 19, 2001 @08:39PM (#138880) Homepage
    In order to be cybersquatting, you have to register a domain name for which a prior copyright exists, AND be using it in bad faith.

    Just registering names for which you hold a copyright or for which no prior copyright exists and then squatting on them is not legally "cyberquatting".

    (In fact the bar is slightly higher than this, if you want to read more [nolo.com])

  • Cybersquatting laws don't go far enough (Score:4)

    by Tiroth ( 95112 ) on Tuesday June 19, 2001 @09:11PM (#138881) Homepage
    Hold on and read my comment before you flame. I'm behind fair use on this one.

    What I think is lacking in current cybersquatting laws is that bad faith squatting is considered only in the case where it has already been shown that the complainant has a prior mark which is infringed upon. link [nolo.com]

    I think that cybersquatting laws should be extended to any bad faith holding of domain names. Why? Because if you go to register a domain name these days you'll notice that virtually every English word and plenty of common combinations are taken. This wouldn't bother me, except that many of these domains aren't even in use...they've been bought by squatters.

    It's simple math...when you can buy in bulk, you can register 428 domains for about $3000. Since the going rate for even crap domains seems to be above this (what is $3k to a company?) even one hit in 400 is a net profit. (example: "dot-diddly-dit-dot.com" is on the block [greatdomains.com] for $99999)

    This is terrible, because in its original form the domain name system was available to anyone. With "deregulation" consumers can now purchase domains as cheaply as $10...only problem is, big companies have bought most of the useful ones up, so if you aren't another company with a few Gs in your pocket you can forget about most of the names out there.

    Sure, new TLDs addresses the problem. But really, why should one settle for i-friable.com, or friable.info, when the owner (houseofdomains.com) is just sitting on them? Shouldn't they go to someone who can contribute something to the Internet? What is to stop someone with a few million in capital from buying a large swath of useful names in every TLD, and waiting for the cash to roll in? (especially since some registrars are giving businesses the first crack [slashdot.org] at new names)

    Opening the door to any bad-faith challenge certainly opens up a can of worms, but wouldn't it be nice to have a web where sushi.com [sushi.com] actually led to a sushi site, and thousands of other dead, unused names were being put to good use and making it easier to find information in the billions of web pages out there?
  • Well, I don't know how he feels about it, but I'd fear the assraping that every company in America would line up to give me if I owned the domain and allowed subdomain names like "McDonalds," "Sharperimage" and "Starbucks."

    -Legion

  • AC wrote:

    However, the case of yahoosucks.com, is clearly different. yahoosucks.com is not easily mistaken for yahoo.com. The intent is not to confuse the public, the intent is to exercise freedom of speech in particular freedom. This will be allowed by the courts, expecially since freedom of speech is still a "preferred freedom" (although prehaps slightly less so than in the recent past)

    So why does yahoosucks.com [yahoosucks.com] give a page which purports to be about supermodels driving sports cars ?

  • The third judge then noted that:
    ... the "sucks" suffix precludes any reasonable person from believing that the domain name is associated with or authorized by Complainant.

    The worrying thing is that this argument was explicitly rejected by the first two judges.

  • Didn't Ford win a case against 2600-guys and got their fordsucks.com back ?

    It's funny to see same kind of conflict resolved in two different ways...

  • Re:General Motors cases ..... (Score:5)

    by ahaning ( 108463 ) on Tuesday June 19, 2001 @07:43PM (#138886) Homepage Journal
    No, 2600 still owns FuckGeneralMotors.com [fuckgeneralmotors.com] and FordReallySucks.com [fordreallysucks.com]. So, this might give them a leg up on the FordReallySucks.com site, but who knows about FuckGeneralMotors.com.

    Ford sued 2600 for redirecting visitors of FuckGeneralMotors.com to Ford.com. Apparently visitors to the site might think that Ford is trying to harm GM. Ford's customers are stupid, I guess. They [2600.com] even have the transcript [2600.com] available on their website. However, the case is still pending.

    According to Emanual Goldstein (aka Cereal Killer ;-) ), that the judge denied Ford an injunction on 2600's use of the domain is a good thing. They apparently don't want to be too heavy-handed.

    Oh, and if you're feeling generous, you can donate [yahoo.com] from their online store. So far (11:45PM EST 19/06/01), donations have taken care of 23% of the fees.




    kickin' science like no one else can,
    my dick is twice as long as my attention span.
  • Maybe because .www isn't a standard TLD?


    --Fesh

  • After the previous /. story I was worried that we'd lose the domain [sucs.org] but common sense has won through again. Long live sucks/sucs sites!

    BTW, it's the same SUCS (Swansea University Computer Society) often mentioned in the Linux startup messages...

  • But I thought cybersquatting was illegal...

    Doh. Forgot. Big company registers tons of domains in every possible spelling or misspelling of their name = good. Person registering a site of their own that happens to resemble a company slightly = bad.

    Sheesh. Ever been to mattl.com [slashdot.org]?
    -------------------------------------- ------------

  • The "poor guy" you are talking about is a porn-maven. Remember that monthly item you see on your credit card bill to "Starlite Entertainment Group"? Well that is how he pays for *sucks.com

    According to GANDI's whois database [gandi.net], cocksucks.com (as in fellatio) is owned by Starlight Communications. But wouldn't cocksucks.com be a free-speech site criticizing the pr0n industry? Apparently, he has thought of this; http://www.cocksucks.com [cocksucks.com] doesn't link to americasucks.com like the rest of them do.


  • Organization:
    Secaucus Group Inc
    Secaucus Group Inc
    295 Greenwich Street (Suite 184)
    New York, NY 10007
    US
    Phone: (973) 503 1785
    Email: dparisi@garden.net

    Registrar Name....: Register.com
    Registrar Whois...: whois.register.com
    Registrar Homepage: http://www.register.com

    Domain Name: DANPARISISUCKS.COM

    Created on..............: Fri, Sep 25, 1998
    Expires on..............: Tue, Sep 24, 2002
    Record last updated on..: Fri, Feb 23, 2001

    Administrative Contact:
    Secaucus Group Inc
    Secaucus Group Inc
    295 Greenwich Street (Suite 184)
    New York, NY 10007
    US
    Phone: (973) 503 1785
    Email: dparisi@garden.net

    Technical Contact:
    Dan Parisi
    Dan Parisi
    295 Greenwich Street (Suite 184)
    New York, NY 10007
    US
    Phone: (973) 503 1785
    Email: dparisi@garden.net

    Zone Contact:
    Dan Parisi
    Dan Parisi
    295 Greenwich Street (Suite 184)
    New York, NY 10007
    US
    Phone: (973) 503 1785
    Email: dparisi@garden.net

  • It's silly for a company to register their own 'sucks' domain. What does it matter if I visit SuperMegaCorpSucks.com or SuperMegaCorpIsEvil.com? Either way I probably already hate Super Mega Corp, or why else would I be visiting? Virtually all of my traffic will come from links on other sites, so the URL doesn't matter. Just pick a domain name that is brief enough that it doesn't wrap when enclosed in an e-mail message.

  • Not fair use! (Score:4)

    by www.sorehands.com ( 142825 ) on Tuesday June 19, 2001 @07:47PM (#138893) Homepage
    This topic came up at the ICANN meeting last November.

    I chatted with Aurbach on it and he pointed that *sucks.com is not fair use -- Its proper use!

    The purpose of a trademark is to identify a company, product, or service. You are identifying it as sucking. That is what prompted me to register mattelabuse.com [mattelabuse.com]. It has also been ruled In Mattel v. MCA Records -- the Barbie Girl case that trademark cannot be used to silence critics or satire.

    Of couse, some large companies will use the courts to bankrupt a critic. Those the case frivilous, they count on the expense of litigation to scare and crush the little guy.

  • Good ruling, but not great. (Score:3)

    by e_lehman ( 143896 ) on Tuesday June 19, 2001 @09:12PM (#138894)

    The decision says:

    A majority of the Panel agrees with the holding in Cabela's and concludes that the Respondent's domain name is confusingly similar to the Complainant's marks.

    This is bad, even though other issues let Parisi carry the day. If -sucks sites were decisively ruled not to be "confusing similar" to their prefix, then they'd all be in the clear forever. As it is, survival of a particular site depends on the makeup of the arbitration panel.

    The rationale for saying that -sucks sites are "confusingly similar" is that the name similarity will confuse a search engine. You type in Bloomberg, and you get directed to Bloombergsucks. Clearly, there has been confusion. But there are overwhelming arguments that this is nonsense:

    • Search engines don't key on URLs. The panel states, "the Respondent makes it likely that Internet users entering "Bloomberg" into a search engine will find michaelbloombergsucks.com in addition to the Complainant's sites." But this is demonstrably false! Type "bloomberg" into Google or Altavista. For that matter, type "bloombergsucks". Neither takes you to michaelbloombergsucks.com! The panel pulled "makes it likely" out of thin air-- it's not likely or unlikely, it's either true or false that you're taken to the -sucks site. Specifically, it's false.
    • In any case, "confusingly similar" presumably refers to confused humans, not confused search engines. Arrrrgh!

    An earlier ruling addressed the "confusing similarity" of sucks sites much better: "Both common sense and a reading of the plain language of the Policy support the view that a domain name combining a trademark with the word "sucks" or language clearly indicating that the domain name is not affiliated with the trademark owner cannot be considered confusingly similar to the trademark".

    Common sense is so refreshing!

  • So why not try them out anyway? If you have a bad experience, you could start a "vendorsucks" website for that vendor & help them get that next big contract...
  • zimwiz? -- sorry -- that's *NOT* a palindrome... Close, but no cigar.

  • This whole issue is grey (Score:4)

    by EraseEraseMe ( 167638 ) on Tuesday June 19, 2001 @07:01PM (#138897)
    On the one hand, we have someone using his/her right to free speech, in parody no less, to the full extent of the protection of the constitution (in the US) and other laws for the rest of the world.

    On the other hand, we have the deliberate misuse of a trademark name for the purposes of degradation and or maliciousness intent (Forwarding fordsucks.com to chevrolet.com or whatever that past issue was).

    A lot of points of view will depend on the general outlook of the trademark process to begin with...Is a name really worth that much? If the product isn't good enough without the name attached to it, why is it being purchased?

    But, we have the slippery slope with suing out of existence the *sucks.com domains...Who's next? The deliberate misspellings, the last names that are too close to corporate trademarks, the .org's vs the .com's. There really isn't any one solution...my best guess for this is to have a domain set aside specifically for JUST trademarked corporate names (.tm) If you access a .tm domain, you know it's a valid trademark for a valid product...play first come, first serve with the rest of the domains, you lose it, you sucks.com

  • Did you read the article?

    The "poor guy" you are talking about is a porn-maven. Remember that monthly item you see on your credit card bill to "Starlite Entertainment Group"? Well that is how he pays for *sucks.com.

    You are right that the victory is hollow; this guy is just as much a part of the problem as any big business. It's all about the greed.

  • Not too long, I'd say. For example, a friend of mine's site, fuckcihost.com [fuckcihost.com], a site that is critical of a dedicated hosting company, just got shut down for being "confusingly similar" to the CI Host site, even though it looks nothing like it and even has warnings saying that it is not CI Host's real site in big letters all over it.

    --
    < )
    ( \
    X

  • the guy who used to runisgay.com [isgay.com] said the site was going down a while ago, but it appears to be back up again ... Just in case, you might want to snag the source for the site [isgay.com] while you can...

  • My point was that he was not a poor guy, but someone who was loaded with $$.

    The slashdot 2 minute between postings limit:
    Pissing off coffee drinking /.'ers since Spring 2001.

  • damn sheep - parading this noise. (Score:4)

    by loraksus ( 171574 ) on Tuesday June 19, 2001 @10:26PM (#138902) Homepage
    Victory? Bullshit.
    This guy owns over 700 domains with the suffix sucks. That means he pays $28,000 just for the domains, plus whatever he pays for hosting. Every year. Mind you, thats more than I and quite literally, tens of millions of americans made last year.
    If we want to factor in hosting, this guy is probably looking at a $100,000 bill each year.

    Added to that - he's probably not making a profit

    Even if he is buying names in bulk - for $10 a piece, that's still 7 large plus hosting - Lets not mention the fact that the legal fees associated with this must of have been quite a nice sum.

    There is no victory here for the "little guy", the "little guy" doesn't have the backing to blow money defending him/herself against a corporation that literally has billions to defend itself.
    The basic issue is that even frivilous lawsuits, legal challenges, etc.. are enough to either make the little guy capitulate or run out of $$.

    Eventually the *sucks sites are going to be controlled by big business, or by "business interests" (i.e. the competition) - not by independent people who are the majority of the american public.

    This victory is a hollow and false one - fuck you sheep who are parading this like it's the best thing since the toilet.

    The slashdot 2 minute between postings limit:
    Pissing off coffee drinking /.'ers since Spring 2001.

  • How crazy.. slashdot is my homepage, I do that so I remember to check the latest articles every time I open my browser. Well just now, slashdot wouldn't come up, I'm not sure why. So to test my internet connection, I decided to go to some other random site. For the first time ever, I just typed in something like MicrosoftSucks.com, and got that sucks.com site. I browsed through it a bit. Then I decided since my internet IS working, minus well go back to slashdot. And I see this article?! Thats crazy.
  • Heh, yeah, I guess you're right. 'Startpage' is much better term. But mozilla's options call it a 'home page'.. hmm. They have a 'home' button that takes you to your 'home page' too.
  • How about a .sucks TLD?

    Sounds like a money maker to me.

  • Correct. I own the neat domain names [is|are]verybad.[com|org|net] -- yep, all 6 of them -- and have already given some hostnames off them to a few criticism sites:

    http://softwarepatents.areverybad.org [areverybad.org]
    http://scientology.isverybad.org [isverybad.org]
    http://amway.isverybad.org [isverybad.org]

    If you have a suggestion for redirection (or even IP pointing like I do for the LPF in the softwarepatents case) feel free to contact me.

  • 700 urls (Score:4)

    by Alien54 ( 180860 ) on Tuesday June 19, 2001 @07:00PM (#138907) Journal
    Parisi owns about 700 domain names containing the word "sucks," including Microsoftsucks.com and Chinasucks.com. Typing in those Web addresses redirects surfers to the Sucks.com message board, where they can complain about a variety of organizations and people, including corporations, governments and CEOs, such as Michael Dell.

    As much as I dislike this, I can see it as a business plan, to drive traffic to his "sucks" themed websites.

    This must annoy the big players no end, so he gets bonus brownie points just for that.

    Check out the Vinny the Vampire [eplugz.com] comic strip

  • small victory (Score:4)

    by kurt1992 ( 182839 ) on Tuesday June 19, 2001 @07:50PM (#138908) Homepage
    Though this is one minor victory, the gist of the CNET article is simple, and we've know it for a while: big business is going to send in the lawyers to squelch free speech, and it is usually going to win. After all, the mainstream media has already been bought out. And the average idiot on AOL is not a threat, so the *sucks\.[org|net|com] crowd is on the most wanted list.

    Saying "McDonalds sucks" or "GM sucks" is free speech. That's all there is to it. And all this talk about extortion and why or why not someone owns a domain is nonsense. If these corporate retards had understood the internet instead of just spending the late 80s/early 90s getting drunk at the golf course, this wouldn't be an issue in the first place.

    GM/Disney/AOLTW/Fox aka Murdock now control the media. The last vestige of free speech is the net, which is exactly the reason it is under attack. Its kind of shocking to read wishy-washy posts on this issue on slashdot. Imagine if this site were moderated by AOL or MSN.

    ps, *nix rules, microsoftsucks.com [microsoftsucks.com]

  • In Atlanta Georgia, there is Interstate I285, and it has a web site http://www.285sucks.com and is a place to vent instead of road rage acts. And yes 285 sucks!
    3 S.E.A.S - Virtual Interaction Configuration (VIC) - VISION OF VISIONS!
  • 3) keywords in all countries separately

    What are you, some kind of AOL luser???

  • Interesting, but I thought (from the good ol' days of the early 90s) that "Homepage" was something you created. I've recently started seeing advertisments on TV that say "homepage" when they should've said "startpage".

    That's what it is, folks - the page you start at. Don't forget all the college kids with "This is my Homepage - I have two cats, a goldfish..." etc.

    Of course, there's nothing stopping anyone having their homepage as their startpage!

  • Re:Not very telling... (Score:3)

    by swillden ( 191260 ) <shawn-ds@willden.org> on Tuesday June 19, 2001 @08:08PM (#138912) Journal

    The article isn't very telling with regard to the factors contributing to the inconsistant decision with regard to the domain ownership. This is a cop out really:

    "The respondent registered the domain name with the intention to link it to a free-speech site," the ruling said.

    I think it's sufficient. Actually, though, if you go read the entire decision [sucks.com] you'll find that they did dither a whole bunch before deciding that this was pretty much all it took.

    What I really liked, though, was the other opinion. There were three judges on the panel, and two of them wrote this long, tortuous analysis of the application of the domain name registration policies, complete with cites of relevant cases and analyses of how they applied. The third judge agreed with their conclusion, but his analysis was much simpler.

    He just pointed out that the first requirement of the policy that allows a domain name to be cancelled or transferred was that the name must be confusingly similar to the complainants domain (meaning someone might think that michaelbloombergsucks.com is an official Bloomberg site), and then noted that:

    ... the "sucks" suffix precludes any reasonable person from believing that the domain name is associated with or authorized by Complainant.

    It's so nice when you see legal minds following rational paths...

  • Again about a lawsuit on the rights to a domainname. In this case it was quite provocative, but sometimes I think by myself that it becomes dangerous for an individual to register a domainname for it's humble site, without the risk of an international lawcase of some company that exists in x country with the same name.
  • It'd be almost the same, except all the goatse.cx links would be unlinked.

    eudas
  • Dispute Resolution is being used to deny freedom of speech.

    I have WoolwichSucks.co.uk [woolwichsucks.co.uk] - because I believe Woolwich Building Society (Woolwich.co.uk) defrauded me. I have evidence on my site to back this up.

    There are other reasons for this dispute process, to do with money and power, stated on my WIPO.org.uk [wipo.org.uk] site.

    WIPO.org.uk is a DIRECT challenge to WIPO.org - as you can see by the domain name I have chosen. The World Intellectual Property Organization is part of the United Nations, dealing with these domain and trademark problems.
  • I just registered www.slashdotisgoingunder.com. Do you think they'll sue?
  • Eventually I go look at their website for the positive stuff, then I tag on the word "sucks" to their URL to see if there's an opposing viewoint. But a funny thing has happened in the year that I've been doing this... when I first started, I treated finding a "vendorsucks" website as a deficit. But lately, if I don't find a "vendorsucks" site for a bidder, I wonder if they're a serious contendor in the marketplace.
    Well... I just checked to see if there were any slashdotsucks sites out there, and it seems there aren't any (slashdotsucks.com just gives a blank page, .net, .org yield nothing). So I guess slashdot is either a nothing site or a site that everyone is satisfied with!

    -- Shamus (with tongue stuck firmly in cheek)

    This space for rent. EZ terms!
  • It really can't be as simple as the quote suggests.

    Sure it is. Free Speech and the 1st amendment was created for this very reason. Free Speech is about protecting unpopular speech not popular speech, which doesn't need protection. What can be more unpopular to the people in control then saying they suck?

  • AllYourSucksAreBelongToUs.com

    (sorry, couldn't help myself)
  • Interestingly, the area of deliberate misspellings has been dealt with, and it's pretty clear under trademark law that they're infringements.

    The idea for trademarks is that they're supposed to protect the consumer; basically, the holder of a trademark is allowed to sue people who use trademarks that are really similar, so that consumers don't get confused about what they're buying. So typo registrations (yahooo.com for example :) are obviously confusing, and fall in the area of black-letter law.

    The last names are a thorny part of trademark law. I'm not going there now, 'cause it's too late and I have homework to do for tomorrow. :)

    The degradation issue is where you get really thorny, though. That's a place where lots of countries have no rules at all... but the US has a system for protecting the trademark holder's investment in the mark, and so do quite a few other countries. Again, I'm not goin' there... ;)

  • If the existence of a *sucks.com domain validates a company,then slashdot stands validated. So much for that theory :

    >whois slashdotsucks.com

    Registrant:
    Anthony DiPierro
    34 Putnam Ave
    suite: A7
    Brewster, NY 10509
    US

    Domain Name: SLASHDOTSUCKS.COM
    ... Record last updated on 19-Jun-2001.
    Record expires on 31-Oct-2001.
    Record Created on 31-Oct-2000.

    Domain servers in listed order:
    NS1.MCFLY.COM 216.97.123.61

  • Not vary telling... (Score:3)

    by hillct ( 230132 ) on Tuesday June 19, 2001 @06:58PM (#138922) Homepage Journal
    Te article isn't vary telling with regard to the factors contributing to the inconsistant decision with regard to the domain ownership. This is a cop out really:
    "The respondent registered the domain name with the intention to link it to a free-speech site," the ruling said.
    SO does this mean that if I have a message board on my website to discuss how ABC sucks, on my website ABCsucks.com. That's simple. There has to be more to this. I didn't see anything in the domain dispute resolution policy with regard to disclosure of statements by the dispute resolution pannel specifically. Is there more complete documentation with regard to what swayed the pannel. It really can't be as simple as the quote suggests.

    --CTH


    ---
  • Here's the publsihed dcision from the Domain Name Dispute Committee, for the MichaelBloomburgSucks.com domain:

    The Dispute Resolution Comittee Decicion [sucks.com]

    --CTH


    ---

  • There really isn't any one solution...my best guess for this is to have a domain set aside specifically for JUST trademarked corporate names (.tm) If you access a .tm domain, you know it's a valid trademark for a valid product...play first come, first serve with the rest of the domains, you lose it, you sucks.com

    Well, first off, the people of Turkmenistan might not be too happy about having their ISO standard country code taken away from them just so that American consumers won't be so confused :)

    And I assume you're intent is to reserve this domain just for American trademarks here, because they're by no means global.

    I believe that this issue has been brought up before, and the consensus is usually that it's not that simple. Even within a single country, trademarks are very domain-specific. Hyundai has a trademark on "Excel" covering automotive applications; Microsoft has the same trademark for software applications; someone else has it for chewing gum... so who gets the www.excel.tm domain?

    I'm happy with things the way they are... you pays your money, you gets your domain name. People shouldn't be confused by the existence of a www.sometrademark.com domain name; if you're looking for a specific product, there are other ways to find it than just making up a URL where you think it should be.

  • > And I assume you're intent

    yeah yeah... should have been your... should have hit preview a couple more times...

  • And if Ford wants and can buy "explorer-sucks.com", that's well and good.

    And then they'll be sued by Microsoft for the rights to the name :)

  • A .sucks TLD was proposed to ICANN [cptech.org] (listed here in ICANN's list of proposed TLDs in October 2000) [icann.org], with the stipulation that the owner of domain.sucks could not be associated with the product/company/etc. domain. I'm assuming this was rejected by ICANN, since it's not on their list of new TLDs [icann.org].
  • Domain names couldn't be done like that - it would be far too sensible. *pshaw* .tm domain names to ensure you know it's a valid corporate name....what next? .xxx domains so that you can clean up all the assorted filth from the internet and put it all in one easily-blockable location for everyone who feels 'children need the protection'?

    Gawd....sensible TLDs...that'll be the day.

    -Nano.
  • .sucks is already carried by ORSC [orscinc.org].
  • Surprisingly, the monicalewinskysucks.com domain is not registered yet...
  • also register:

    1) *.biz
    2) *.info
    3) keywords in all countries separately
    4) and any other root domain they come up with...

    Get's to be expensive, time consuming, and a general pain-in-the-butt...

    MadCow

  • Well I hate living in my town and made a site about it called MinocquqSucks.com and Hosted it on geocities for a while intending to get the domain, which I did about 2 weeks ago. I never offered the domain for sale I just pointed it to my geoctieis site so people could find it easier and I could get listed in more search engines.

    A while ago a rumor got back to me that the town was going to try to sue the domain back from me but now with this ruling I feel much safer. Considering I had a 'sucks' site before i got the domain and I'm not offering it for sale I feel much more confident in it. Now if I can just get a TradeMark on it.

    The site is MinocquSucks.com [minocquasucks.com]. Go and be amazed at how much 10 square miles of town can really suck.

    Now if I can just get the lawsuits to go away I can just worry about finding a good cheap host.

  • I was talking about this not long ago with a friend over corporate fast food in a corporate department store chain in the trendy little college town in which I live:

    Most companies create for themselves and image. They build a face, maybe a logo, a mascot, a color scheme, a tagline, whatever, and they associate this image with their name. Most companies work so that their name and image (and sometimes catchphrase) far overshadow their product. Why? Because people are bored by details. Soundbites, hot logos, and "the idea" are what sell things.

    Examples: Tony the Tiger has NOTHING to do with Frosted Flakes, and neither do those little guys on the Rice Crispies box have anything to do with their cereal. McDonalds doesn't care if we smile or not -- they lie about what they cook their fries in.

    With companies, it's all buzzwords and ideas that "make ya feel good about the product." IBM isn't going to bore end users and PHBs with jargon and technobabble. No, they'll play up the B2B angle, show pictures of sleek machines (and people) working hard. They play up the power aspect. Who cares that the whole tech crew might have to make a shift from Solaris to AIX, or from BSD to NT, or whatever. It's the CONCEPT that they feed us, the associations that they attach to their name and image, that is important.

    That's why (whatever)sucks.com is such a big issue with these people. It's hard to put on the hard sell when Joe Sixpack in Blindpossum, OK can just surf over to (whatever)sucks.com and instantly see a negative view there.

    In the thread about teaching seniors about the Internet, concerns were voiced about being savvy enough to tell the shysters from the experts. After all, a lot of people really do believe everything that they read, and anyone who represents himself as an expert.

    That's part of what motivates companies to sue (whatever)sucks.com webmasters: it interferes with the picture they paint. Whether or not the material that appears on the site is true is immaterial, because either way, it's bad for the company.

    Americans especially are used to being told how to think, what to buy, etc. Our entire society is very neatly designed for us, from what our families should be like, how we interact, all the way to what to wear, eat, drive, etc. In a modern age of media, those with broadcast control have the power.

    The Internet is a unique media where the common man can expend very little money and effort ($35 to buy the domain, about the same monthly for a cheap-midrange hosting package, and a few hours) to create something just as publically available as microsoft.com. If Joe Sixpack from Blindpossum, OK decides that some company or another has given him a raw deal, the Internet can provide a perfect forum to voice discontent (although I will say that this forum is also a great place to spread disinfo, and I'm suprised rival companies haven't snatched up (whatever)sucks.com domains, started hosting them in South Korea, etc).

    Companies aren't used to the little guy having so much power, and react the way they always do: by crushing their adversary.

    I don't think it's ever been about confusion. It's companies defending their carefully wrought, expensive images from Joe Sixpack of Blindpossum, OK's untrained hand.

    "Because the truth is available in limited quanitites."

  • There is no need for slashdotsucks, everybody can complain about slashdot right here.

  • Just goes to show... (Score:5)

    by Dancin_Santa ( 265275 ) <DancinSanta@gmail.com> on Tuesday June 19, 2001 @06:58PM (#138944) Journal
    that you've got to think ahead when you create a website for your company. You need to register:

    1) 'Your company's name'.com
    2) 'Your company's name'.org and .net
    3) 'Your company's name misspelled'.com/org/net
    4) 'Your company's name'sucks.com/org/net
    5) 'Your company's name permuted'.com/org/net
    6) 'Your company's name backwards'.com/org/net
    7) 'Your company CEO's name'.com/org/net
    8) 'Your company CEO's name'sucks.com/org/net

    And so on and so on...

    It's a wonder anyone wants to get online these days.

    Dancin Santa

  • Even if he is buying names in bulk - for $10 a piece, that's still 7 large plus hosting - Lets not mention the fact that the legal fees associated with this must of have been quite a nice sum.

    Most of the sites point to the discussion boards at sucks.com. So whatever you estimate for hosting, you don't need to multiply it by 700. Besides, I suspect the traffic to the sucks.com discussion fora is negligable next to the bandwidth from his porn properties.

    As for this being a vistory for big business: while porn may be a big business, it is hardly in the same class as the corporate intersts that are typically accused of running things.

    • wouldn't it be nice [if] names were being put to good use and making it easier to find information in the billions of web pages out there

    I get pissed too at seeing a domain name not being used, especially as my name.com [colinmacdonald.com] goes to an AOL 404 (should I sue for defamation? ;) ).

    But let's not forget that domain names can be used for things other than web sites. Anyone remember the fight over mypalm.com [mypalm.com], where the owner was using it only as a mail address, and Palm thought they could just demand because there was no port 80 server? They got burned, and eventually agreed to buy the domain but forward email to the old owner. Ironically, they're not even using it now (follow the link above and see), they just wanted it and thought that they were entitled to it because they had lawyers.

  • We have awarded bids to several vendors with a corresponding "vendorsucks" website. And no, we can't even post our own worst horror stories to a "vendorsucks" website without violating the law.

    And that's actually a good thing, if you look at it from a taxpayer point of view.

  • We put out a lot of RFPs on a regular basis, and when we get letters of intent from vendors I go through a number of steps to satisfy my employer's requirements for "due diligence".

    Eventually I go look at their website for the positive stuff, then I tag on the word "sucks" to their URL to see if there's an opposing viewoint. But a funny thing has happened in the year that I've been doing this... when I first started, I treated finding a "vendorsucks" website as a deficit. But lately, if I don't find a "vendorsucks" site for a bidder, I wonder if they're a serious contendor in the marketplace.

    In other words, if they're not big enough to have pissed somebody off, somewhere, do I want to deal with them?

    The old adage about bad publicity being better than no publicity seems to make sense.

  • danparisisucks.com is already registered... (Score:4)

    by BIGJIMSLATE ( 314762 ) on Tuesday June 19, 2001 @07:42PM (#138951)
    By Dan Parisi... :p

    Guess he got Bloomberg there.

    Then again, danparisisucks.org, or even danparisiisthegoatseman.com are both available, ready for Bloomberg to register.
  • ...on the other hand, you could skip the registration of possible permutations of your company's name, along with every possible "sucks" domains...

    ...and just check your (corporate) ego at the door.

    yeah. *that'll* happen...

  • So how long beforewe get NameOfATotalLosersuckssucks.com? And then NameOfATotalLosersuckssuckssucks.com? And then NameOfATotalLosersuckssuckssuckssucks.com? Ad nauseum....
  • There are two sides to this issue. On the one hand, a domain name is property - private property, earned (read: paid for) by the person who registers it. Under the law, and under any reasonable code of morality, none may reject the property claims of another, providing that ownership is earned. On the other hand, there are such things as slander, libel, defamation of character. Under these concepts, it is wrongful to publicly attempt to damage the name of an individual or a company, provided that attempt is unprovoked, or undeserved. whateversux.com domains are a difficult call, it would seem, then.

    However, the fact is that a domain name itself is not inherently damaging to anyone. The content available at such a domain may be, but the domain itself is not. If the content is derogatory in any reasonably illegal manner, then the content may be forced to be changed - but the domain itself stays. If I, as an individual, register a domain such as xyzcompanysucksabigone.com for example, I am simply using the company name or the individual's name according to fair-use laws. If I were a for-profit interest, especially one with a vested interest in defeating the company named in the domain, that would be a totally different case.

  • Someone has already done the slashdot site..

    Domain Name: SLASHDOTSUCKS.COM

    Registrar: TUCOWS, INC.
    Whois Server: whois.opensrs.net
    Referral URL: http://www.opensrs.org
    Name Server: NS1.MCFLY.COM
    Updated Date: 03-mar-2001

  • I remember hearing something a while back about an idea to introduce a new TLD called .sucks (or perhaps more with the spirit of 3-letter TLDs, .sux). The person who mentioned it to me attributed the idea to Ralph Nader, and thought I can believe he may support it, I rather doubt he conceived the idea. The concept was that xxx company could buy all the xxx.com/.org/.net etc. they wanted, but they would be explicity barred from purchasing xxx.sucks. I suppose this would require the cooperation of some group like ICANN (who probably wouldn't cooperate), but I think it sounds like a reasonably good idea.

    To put things a little more in perspecitve, it really wouldn't have to be a "sucks" TLD, so much as any TLD that was put aside for criticism of it's corresponding .com. Now of course, besides prohibiting the .com owner, the direct competitors of the .com owner should probably be prohibited as well. Perhaps ownership of a .sux should be limited to non-profits, or consumer advocacy groups. (It could be a .con, ha ha.)

    This probably sounds terribly idealistic, but I think the real issue right now is that *sucks.com is not a cogent movement, therefore it's hard to rule on unilaterally. What do other people think?

  • SUch domain names still in question - for now. (Score:4)

    by standards ( 461431 ) on Tuesday June 19, 2001 @07:05PM (#138967)
    Alas, this is just a small victory for free speech in America... one which I think we will eventually win.

    The new legal approach for pursuing the *sucks* domain names are to (1) pretend that such *sucks* domains could have a positive business value for the trademark holder, and (2) Those who originally own and register the *sucks* sites are merely squatting on a piece of realestate.

    Of course, we all know it's far from that simple - "Oh, explorers-suck.com helps us relate to our customers". Yeah, right.

    In our capitalist economy, every domain name is for sale for some price. And if Ford wants and can buy "explorer-sucks.com", that's well and good. But to proclaim that such domain ownership is squatting unless proven otherwise is the current trend of the lower courts.

    Happily, the supreme court may thing otherwise. In Amptron vs. Amptronics, the court determined that there is the reasonable concept of so-called "Dualistic Trade Rights", where the trademark holder was found not to have automatic rights over a similar name. Proof that not guilty unless proven innocent still exists.

    If and when one of these cases makes it to that court, it'll be interesting to see if they equate the outcome of this kind of case with the Amptron case.

    I'd bet that they will, and all these "*sucks*" cases will be history. Only after it gets that high up in the courts will we have a final answer
  • You know...it's not like the "suck" sites are popular or even good sites. They are only there, and that is all.

    However, if some of these sites got real popularity, the affected company should think, why this is happening.

    What I say, is, that they CAN be an annoyance, but hardly something else.

    Of course, go tell the CEOs that.

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