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Censorship Your Rights Online

2600 Magazine Defeats Ford 221

Posted by michael from the parry-and-riposte dept.
narftrek cut-and-pastes the text from 2600's announcement that Ford has conceded the case they brought against 2600 over a certain domain. Our earlier story has some background. A Volvo repair shop near me is named "Island Vo Vo"; the L is silent, you see, because Ford really sucks.
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2600 Magazine Defeats Ford More

2600 Magazine Defeats Ford

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  • Can someone post the article for me? My firewall blocks the 2600 domain (go figure, eh?)

    • Re:Post Article? (Score:5, Informative)

      by Mr Guy ( 547690 ) on Friday June 28, 2002 @08:11AM (#3786060) Journal
      font SIZE="3" COLOR="#CCCCCC" FACE="helvetica"> FORD DROPS APPEAL - 2600 VICTORY AFFIRMED
      Posted 28 Jun 2002 05:40:29 UTC

      Ford Motor Company has officially and unconditionally conceded its complete, utter, and perpetual loss on the merits of the FORD v. 2600 "FuckGeneralMotors.com" case. Ford has dismissed its appeal to the Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, meaning that Ford has completely given up all attempts to reverse the victory that 2600 Enterprises won on December 20, 2001. The mutually agreed dismissal papers were officially entered by the Sixth Circuit on June 27, 2002.

      In the words of another FORD from Michigan -- former President Gerald Ford, "Our long national nightmare is over."

      2600, which has given up nothing other than an extremely improbable claim for getting its attorneys' fees back from FORD, has expressly reserved the right to point "FuckGeneralMotors.com" [fuckgeneralmotors.com] anyplace whatsoever that 2600 pleases -- including at the FORD homepage -- at any time whatsoever, with or without notice.

      Of course, the plan in March, 2001, when the lawsuit arose, was to point the address someplace more suitable than the FORD homepage, probably as soon as mid-April or early May, 2001. In other words, the lawsuit has actually delayed 2600's prior plans (several other domain names that were part of the same project have been re-pointed several times, while FuckGeneralMotors.com has remained pointed at FORD). Now that the lawsuit has been won, 2600 will be soliciting suggestions during the H2K2 [h2k2.net] conference, for the best place to point the Domain Name. Ultimately, this just proves how silly and counterproductive FORD's litigation strategy always has been from the beginning.

      In December, 2001, Judge Robert Cleland of the Eastern District of Michigan, dismissed FORD's lawsuit in its entirety for "failure to state a claim upon which relief may be granted" -- which means that even assuming every single allegation in FORD's pleadings to be true (but the allegations weren't all true), FORD still had no legal right whatsoever to prohibit 2600 from pointing FuckGeneralMotors.com at FORD's homepage.

      Needless to say, FORD did not like that outcome. Neither did a lot of other intellectual property interests all over the world. Indeed, a google search will reveal a number of PowerPoint(tm) presentations published on the Web (e.g., http://austlii.edu.au/ hkitlaw/resources/Pun_IP.pdf [austlii.edu.au]) by various intellectual property lawyers, emphasizing that the decision is being appealed. Well, now it isn't.

      The decision stands. It is published at 177 F. Supp. 2d 661. And it is binding precedent. The decision has even been cited by the Sixth Circuit already, in an interim order that was issued in the "TaubmanSucks" case handled by Paul Levy of Public Citizen. http://www.citizen.org/documents/TaubDecision-3-11 -02.pdf . [citizen.org]

      When FORD filed its appeal to the Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in January, 2002, FORD sought to have the case reinstated so that FORD could take it to trial. 2600 filed a cross-appeal, solely on the issue of whether FORD should be required to reimburse 2600 for its legal bills (such fee awards, in cases under the Lanham Trademark Act, are not especially common and occur only in "exceptional" cases -- so the Sixth Circuit was likely to defer to Judge Cleland's decision to award 2600 its "costs" but not its attorneys' fees). 2600 still gets to take its "costs" back from FORD, and our lawyer is preparing to serve a deposition notice on Bill Ford, to gather the information necessary to garnish FORD's bank accounts, unless FORD cuts us a reimbursement check forthwith.

      But the key point is that 2600's victory is permanent and FORD has voluntarily foregone any appeals. The savings, in terms of attorneys' fees, from our standpoint, are enormous.

    • for future reference...
      2600.com also links to
      2600.org, .net, .ca, and a bunch of other country codes to get around things like this (or try typing in the decimal value of the ip)

  • Sounds familiar (Score:2, Insightful)

    by rob-fu ( 564277 )
    They registered this name [fucknbc.com] too a couple of years ago.

    There isn't anything there now, but I do remember something being up there at one point.

  • editorializing (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 28, 2002 @08:13AM (#3786068)
    ""the L is silent because Ford really sucks"

    You know, it's moments like this that make me realize that the vapid, heartless, childish, snide front-page editorializing on slashdot is the only reason i still read this damn site.

    keep up the good work, cheers

  • Here's Why (Score:5, Informative)

    by peterdaly ( 123554 ) <petedaly@ix[ ]tcom.com ['.ne' in gap]> on Friday June 28, 2002 @08:14AM (#3786076)
    Ford sucks. No, really, we mean it. Long and hard. And Ford swallows. Spit. Skeptical? Don't just take our word for it. Just ask the guy who registered fordsucks.com. Or the guy who registered classicvolvo.com and wound up facing a legal battle. (Yes, Volvo is owned by Ford, as is Mazda, Lincoln, Mercury, Jaguar and Aston-Martin.) Or you can ask Wally Rawson, a third-generation seller of replacement parts for Ford cars and trucks. Wally registered 4fordparts.com and 4fordtrucks.com as part of his parts business. Ford sued him. At the same time, Ford sued Hans Rekestad (the guy in Sweden running ClassicVolvo.com). The fordsucks guy was also named in the same lawsuit.

    --SNIP--

    Ford didn't just sue. Ford asked for $100,000 in damages. Not for all these cases put together - $100,000 per address! And Ford won't just let any of these people give up the names and walk away. Ford won't reimburse them for their registration and renewal costs.

    Wally Rawson (the parts guy) didn't want to be bothered with the lawsuit, so he just gave Ford both names. Ford is still suing him. Ford tells him he can't crawl out of the soup until he pays Ford $6000.00 ($3000 per name). The fordsucks guy, evidently, decided it would be cheaper to pay the blackmail than to fight it out in court.

    Read More [fordreallysucks.com]

    I thought that page was worth a read.
  • Basically, 2600 is telling users to say "Shove it!" to GM and buy a Ford. It's almost a form of (negative) advertising.

    The one who should be angry is General Motors. They're the ones being told to screw off.
    • Why is 2600 saying "Shove it!" to GM, though? I can't figure that part out.

      • Re:Hell, Ford should be happy with the link! (Score:4, Informative)

        by Clover_Kicker ( 20761 ) <clover_kicker@yahoo.com> on Friday June 28, 2002 @08:32AM (#3786161)
        > Why is 2600 saying "Shove it!" to GM, though? I
        > can't figure that part out.

        They registered the domain name with the intention of making a site to bitch about GM.

        They didn't have any content yet, so they pointed it to Ford until they got more organized.

        Once Ford started legal proceedings, they almost had to keep that address pointing at Ford, anything else would have been seen as backing down.

        • But what were they going to bitch about? Anything in particular? I guess that's what I am curious about. Is it anything significant, or is it just another excuse to bitch?

          I would say you could bitch a lot more about Ford, past and present than GM. I shouldn't even have to list those reasons for you (pinto, firestone, etc.) GM is a natural target though, I suppose. When you've produced nearly 1/3rd of the cars on the road in the US you can expect a lot of people to not like you =]
          • >But what were they going to bitch about? Anything
            >in particular? I guess that's what I am curious
            >about. Is it anything significant, or is it just
            >another excuse to bitch?

            Sounds like it was just an excuse to bitch.

            From http://www.fordreallysucks.com/more_info.html [fordreallysucks.com]

            >Months after the threat from General Motors, we
            >pointed the domain at various competitors of GM.
            >It was our eventual plan either to find or put
            >together a site that would provide a forum for
            >people critical of the company. While that was
            >being done, we pointed the domain to other sites
            >that might be of interest to people who weren't
            >big fans of General Motors. One of these (it made
            >sense to us then and it still does now, albeit
            >less so after what we've learned) was Ford.
    • Basically, 2600 is telling users to say "Shove it!" to GM and buy a Ford. It's almost a form of (negative) advertising.

      The wonderful thing about 2600 cases is that the worst that can happen is they throw Goldstein et. al. in the slammer which given that they appear to have the personality of the Grouch in Sesame street (being anoyed makes me happy) I suspect they would really, really enjoy...

      I don't much care if 2600 can't point 'fuckxyz' at Ford. But I do care about the various deep linking cases.

      The sheer eggregiousness of the 2600 case made it a pretty good test case. If 2600 lost the risk of collateral damage to serious deep linking would be minimal. If they win, well if you can point fuck at someone then you can probably point most anything.

      The downside being that it was a pretty risky case that could easilly have backfired. 2600 made a really good target for the MPAA in the DeCSS case. My concern about this case was that they might easily have got a Reagan appointee conservative judge who might well have made an idiotic rulling because he disliked the 2600 people trying to turn a court case into performance art.

      I had been asked to give expert testimony in the case but could not because Ford's legal people had added my employer in as a defendant in yet another case.

      I suspect that the basic problem is that either the Ford lawyers are fundamentally incompetent or an incompetent manager insisted on a lawsuit. Starting a law suit in an untested area of law is a pretty stupid first recourse if your interest is to solve a problem. It is possible that Ford really wanted to have this area of law settled, but I doubt it.

      It is the cases like this one that led to the charges for domain names in the first place. Until people started to file lawsuits registration was free.

  • Outdated facts.... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Dios ( 83038 ) on Friday June 28, 2002 @08:17AM (#3786090) Homepage
    Its interesting that the links info is a bit outdated.
    (http://www.fordreallysucks.com/more_in fo.html)

    The page hasn't been updated in some time. Nasser is no longer president/ceo of ford. In fact, a Ford family member (William Clay Ford) is now running things again (which hasn't happened in a while).

    Check out http://money.cnn.com/2001/10/30/ceos/ford/ for info.
    • Its interesting that the links info is a bit outdated.

      If you read the 2600 account you'd know that the page hasn't been updated while the action was pending. They now intend to point it somewhere else.
    • In fact, a Ford family member (William Clay Ford) is now running things again (which hasn't happened in a while).

      Great more Nazi's!

      So will they sue me now over www.fordwasanazi.com?

  • Freedom of speech? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by kafka93 ( 243640 ) on Friday June 28, 2002 @08:18AM (#3786093)
    I'm afraid I'm going to post without having too great an understanding of the entire situation - nothing new to /., of course, but still.. at any rate, the site in question isn't too immediately informative as to what all of this is about, but as far as I can tell, Ford took 2600 to court for pointing www.fuckgeneralmotors.com to Ford's website.

    Now, whilst I'm all for freedom of speech, isn't it perhaps understandable that Ford should have been upset, or concerned, by this? Whilst the link was presumably set up as a kind of compliment to Ford (at GM's expense), it's easy to see that Ford would be upset by such a move - the page might well, to the non-tech-savvy, look as though it had been set up *by* Ford themselves; hardly a professional image to betray.

    In cases like this where it's not immediately clear *who* is doing the "speaking", isn't the concept of "freedom of speech" clouded? Wouldn't this stray into libel territory, where words are being essentially "put into the mouth" of Ford? Certainly, anyone with the technical knowhow could determine who the page *was* owned by - but many people don't have that technical knowledge, and will go with their gut reactions.

    Of course, legal action is a typically heavy-handed response. Nonetheless, if I'm reading the situation correctly then I can feel a certain empathy for Ford's initial reaction..

    • Try reading the article (Score:4, Informative)

      by Salsaman ( 141471 ) on Friday June 28, 2002 @08:31AM (#3786158) Homepage
      Ford never made any attempt to contact us before filing this lawsuit in federal court. A simple request to not point the domain at them would most likely have wound up with our doing just that, since the project really had nothing to do with Ford in the first place. But they never even tried to resolve this. In addition, Ford has the ability to block our pointer from reaching their homepage, which would accomplish everything they wanted. Again, they made no attempt to do this.

      • I read the article. However, whilst I agree that Ford could have circumvented the redirection, this doesn't negate the potential issue that companies may potentially be at risk of having others redirect (transparently, even) to their sites in a similar fashion - these cases are *not* as clear cut as simply linking to a page, in my opinion. Is it entirely fair for the burden of responsibility to be placed upon the companies to be aware of everything that is "said using their voice", so to speak?

        I'm not necessarily suggesting otherwise; I'm merely pointing out that the ethical arguments *aren't* as simple as they might otherwise seem. To extend (rather excessively) the analogy to human speech, what people seem to be saying is akin to "Well, I can disguise myself as you, put on silly or offensive clothes, and have people believe that I *am* you -- but that's okay because, well, you could stop me if you knew I was doing it".

        Again, I think Ford might have been more.. delicate, in this situation -- I'd blame trigger-happy lawyers. But the point has already been made by somebody else that it's not as though 2600 *asked* Ford before setting up the redirection, either. Who's being inconsiderate of whom?
    • I agree - it isn't good publicity to use domain names like fuck[competitor] to point your site (who ever does it) - most of people really get the idea that the domain name owner and site content is from same source. To emphasize my business I would never say anything so negative about competitors.

      This seems like ethical question I've never seen discussed before. I understand both sides - would have been professional from Ford to ask 2600-guys pointing fuckGM to Ford's site - but also vice versa... would have been very nice from 2600 to ask Ford what they would like if fuckGM pointed to their site. And afterwards it isn't hard to say what would have happened...

      2600: Can we point fuckGM to your site?
      Ford: That's not good business for us, please don't.
      2600: We'll do it anyway.
      Ford: See you in court.

      Eh?
      • One of the major points of this is that 2600 was under no obligation to ask Ford. Freedom of speech allows them to point it to them if they so desire.

        And Ford didn't need to ask 2600 to stop pointing it at them. As others have pointed out, Ford could have stopped people from seeing their site after typing in that domain with extraordinarily little effort.

        So it is obvious that Ford was NOT trying to protect it's business. It was NOT trying to protect it's image. It WAS trying to create a whole new set of corporate rights by asserting that nobody could point/redirect to their site without their express consent. Fortunately (in a rare occurence lately) a court was sensible and recognized how very wrong Ford was and dismissed the suit. My shock is that Ford gave up. They're wrong, but that ususally doesn't stop corporate America.

    • I see more of a problem if you point a domain to an IP address of someone that doesn't wish you to. Take all the "fuck GM" and "ford sucks" stuff out of the picture and look at it that way. Should you be able to register a domain and point it to an IP Address you do not own with permission? I can't exactly forward all my mail at home to Bill Gate's desk without causing some trouble. (Although, that would be 'forwarding' which would be different from giving out my address as his).

      I see a potential problem there. Pointing a domain to an IP address that you don't own. This brings up the issue of the legality of linking, etc. as well I suppose. Is there any difference when it's at this level?

      As far as libel, I don't see it. They aren't saying "Ford rapes little boys", they're saying "GM sucks".

      • Re:Freedom of speech? (Score:3, Informative)

        by SirSlud ( 67381 )
        Well, you're not forwarding mail, you're forwarding visitors to your house to Bill Gates' house. And Bill Gates can simply lock his gate.

        Same with a domain pointer. A simple programmatic check on the front page of Ford's site (about 3 lines of code) would turn away 99.99% of all the people coming through that domain. Ford chose not to deny those visitors, which would have accomplished everything they wanted .. they chose to sue the person telling everyone to g there.

        There's no problem, because the target can always diffuse the pointer. Ford was simply trying to use bully tactics to dissuade people from doing similar things even if its totally preventable by the alleged 'victim' of this terrible terrible crime - uncool, and like any company hypocritically attempting to keep their image cleaner than a bus full of Kumbaya-singin nuns, they deserved to lose.
        • Well, you're not forwarding mail, you're forwarding visitors to your house to Bill Gates' house.

          You're not even going that far. You're just saying, if anyone ever asks about "suckyville" or "hobohouse," what you're referring to is such-and-such address. Nobody's forwarding visitors. The visitors might choose to forward themselves, maybe.

          Suing someone for doing that is like suing someone for referring to your street address in less-than-glowing terms.

        • A simple programmatic check on the front page of Ford's site (about 3 lines of code) would turn away 99.99% of all the people coming through that domain.

          A simple check of the host parameter (required for Http 1.1) would do the same thing for all of Ford's pages. No coding required, as this is handled by the server.

      • if you point a domain to an IP address of someone that doesn't wish you to
        False:
        by setting up a domain name, you say that some string of char is to be understood as some number.
        It happens that browser and user expect it to have some meaning, but you are only paying for the right to say: this string is to be translated as this 32bit number.

    • erm... (Score:2, Interesting)

      by oPless ( 63249 )
      I think one of the major points here is that Ford didn't even have to decency of saying "Hey guys, thats funny, now can you point it elsewhere"

      They sued, and lost. Good.

      Usually you would think it is just plain old good manners to say "look, stop that, I don't like it" ... oddly enough 2600 are adults, and I'm sure they would have pointed the domain elsewhere.

      Also if they had a competent sysadmin, they could have just blocked that url by tweaking IIS. Maybe their MSCEs couldn't work it out perhaps...

      Anyhow this smacks of plain ignorance (on Fords part) rather than anything else.

    • Among other things, Ford could choose to block the link from 2600 so that it didn't get forwarded. They're not powerless in this matter. But Ford's filing says: "The public recognizes, and often relies on the expectation, that links to a company's official web site address are sponsored by, affiliated with, or somehow approved by that company." Which is bogus.

      Sure, Ford may be upset or concerned about this. And I suppose I can understand why they're unhappy, but they can't claim that people don't have the right to link to their site, period.

    • hardly a professional image to betray

      hahahaha.. That was a good one...
    • IMHO, it's very much a non-issue if redirection to another web page upsets the author of the original page. As a web user, it's your duty to learn the basics of its structure.

      One of the primary concepts of the WWW is hyperlinking. By its very nature, it can be done by any site, to any site. An extension of this concept is web page re-direction. To blindly make an assumption that an unprofessional sounding domain name linked to a company's competitor was initally created by the first company is foolish.

      Could this mistake still happen? Oh, absolutely! Should a company like Ford waste any time worrying about it? Nope! Once the user gets redirected to Ford's own web site - the site should speak for itself. If Ford's own site doesn't vouch for their professional nature and interest a reader in purchasing/leasing one of their vehicles - then the problem is entirely on Ford.

    • You raise a very interesting point here.

      I wonder if the same laws covering impersonations would apply here - in some way or another. For example, if I registered a domain name and pointed it to the website of a local police station or the FBI or somesuch, could I be charged with impersonating law enforcement?
    • In cases like this where it's not immediately clear *who* is doing the "speaking", isn't the concept of "freedom of speech" clouded?

      I am not american, but I still have to say NO.
      Freedom of speech, wether it's from anonymous sources or not in this case, should not be conditional.

      In this case Ford could've said that they're not behind the www.fuckgeneralmotors.com and that should've been the end of discussion.
    • It might have been better just to add an entry to their HTTP config so that anyone sending a Host: header that was not one of their "accepted" domains gets sent to a "special" error page.

      Probably would have been cheaper, too.
    • I understand Ford getting pissed about this. I understand them not wanting gmsucks.com to point to the Ford web site. The way they went about asking was a breach of ettiquette ... they could have asked, politely, but instead they sent a bark letter.

      If nothing else, this defeat will demonstrate that bark letters don't work with geeks. That lesson in and of itself might save Ford a lot of PR trouble in the next few decades.

  • I'm not sure if anyone notice the link to "a certain domain" but why would Ford take issue with a disparaging site about one of its competitors (General Motors)?

    Editors, you might want to check that link.

  • we would see the following domain name registered:

    http://www.fuckfordfuckthemuptheirstupidasses.co m

    (which is free, btw)

    -D

  • This isn't the "Jilted lovers of Gerarld, Lita, and Mary Ford" support group?

  • Freedom to Speak.. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by lionchild ( 581331 ) on Friday June 28, 2002 @08:24AM (#3786126) Journal
    I'm surprised any of these suits would have ever gotten anywhere. These seem to clearly be an issue of one person expressing their -opinion- about various things. Either GM, (the company or the product) and Ford, (etiher the company or the product.) Get upset all you want, it's their constituational right to have an opinion and express it.

    Or has that been changed recently too?
    • Awk! Pieces of eight. Pieces of eight. Pieces of... ERROR: General Protection Fault. [Parity Error.]

      Now that's funny!

      'E's not dead. 'E's pinin' away for the fijords.

    • Sig (Score:1)

      by Rupert ( 28001 )
      Parrotty error would be "Pieces of seven! Pieces of seven!"
    • I'm surprised any of these suits would have ever gotten anywhere.

      The point was not go "get the suit anywahere"; I strongly suspect that Ford knew it would lose once this made it to court. The point was the scare 2600 into dropping the site. Like many other large companies, Ford uses this tactic in lieu of any actual legal right to shut down registrants of domains with "ford" in their names. fordreallysucks.com [fordreallysucks.com] is full of anectodes of this.

      Fortunately, 2600 doesn't scare easily. And the precedent set will help protect other domain name registrants who are being bullied by Corporate America.

  • da (Score:2)

    by Vodak ( 119225 )
    2600 finally has something to report on which is positive to them. Good thing with H2K2 on the horizon =]
  • A Volvo repair shop near me is named "Island Vo Vo"; the L is silent...

    The only 'L' I see is in 'island' - does that mean they pronounce it 'eyeand Vo Vo'?
    • yeah, what the fuck is up with that.

      The l isn't silent in island anyway, the s is. So what vosvo ? Even if it was that would make about as much sense as my toejam, as it is though...

  • You'd think that 2600 could survive the Slashdot effect

  • The article is wrong! (Score:3, Interesting)

    by www.sorehands.com ( 142825 ) on Friday June 28, 2002 @08:47AM (#3786226) Homepage
    The article say there is precidential value to this case, there is not (unfortunately). Courts can look at this case, but the courts are free to ignore this since this is trial court level decisions, not appeals court level.


    They claim it is improbable to get attorney fees. If they look at some of the cases on Rule 68 and cases that provide for attorney fees, there is precident that says when there is a fee shifting provision with a requirement for the other side to pay costs, the costs do include fees.


    Since the case was dismissed for failure to state a claim and they appealed it, but dropped it, I would argue that ford's lawyers should be sanctioned under rule 11 (filing a frivilous action).

    • As the article explains, the reason this is considered precedential is that the Sixth Circuit Appeals Court (the one that would have heard this appeal) has already used the results of original trial when they decided a separate case. FORD quite rightly realized that their chance of winning the appeal was rather tiny since the Appeals Court had already approved the original ruling.

      --Atlantix2000

  • I did something like this a few years ago... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by i_want_you_to_throw_ ( 559379 ) on Friday June 28, 2002 @08:51AM (#3786250) Journal
    With whitearyanresistance.com, org and net. I just wrote a Perl script that would randomly throw people to other sites like algore2000.com, blacksonblondes.com, Southern Poverty Law Center and other places.

    It did get me a few death threats and a mention on the weekly radio program of white supremacist and uber sister smoocher Tom Metzger's.

    So to Emmanuel Goldstein, CONGRATULATIONS! You have certainly taken your ideas to lengths that would stop other men cold. Most people would give up after the first lawsuit.

    To others, if you want to do some nifty activism, hijack urls of organizations you can't stand. If it isn't a registered trademark (which "white aryan resistance" wasn't) you can have fun and get death threats (mostly from illiterates).

    It's fun, try it.
    • I'd like to get www.heroinoverdose.com and direct it to Alice in Chain's Web Page [aliceinchains.net].
      While I'm at it, I could also get www.ihaveaholeinmyhead.com and point it to a random Nirvana web page.
      Or I could get www.iamnotakidnapper.com and point it to US Rep. Gary Condit's page [house.gov].
      Or www.softwarecrash.com and point it to M$'s page. [microsoft.com]

      Certainly, some of these examples are a bit over the top in terms of appropriateness. But, that's the point. Where do you draw the line between an "appropriate" redirect and an "inappropriate" one? Who is to say what is appropriate and what isn't? Since everyone here seems to have such faith in the US court system (although I'd respectfully disagree with you about that opinion), you wouldn't want to leave it up to the courts. The easiest, and probably the best, method of dealing with it is to ban all such redirects as 2600's. Okay, it was hysterically funny and everyone in my office (even non-techies!) laughed. Definately, Ford handled this completely wrong. But, it was inappropriate and although nowhere near as offensive as some of my examples, why not just nip the problem in the bud?
      • Where do you draw the line between an "appropriate" redirect and an "inappropriate" one?
        The point is that you don't draw a line. There is no reason to draw a line. If you think something is inappropriate, don't go to that site. Or if you feel compelled, complain to them about it, but there is no reason to regulate this kind of speech.

        Its really similar to TV or talk radio. If I don't like the humor on a show I don't watch it. If I find the opions espoused by a host inane or baseless, I don't listen. That's the great thing about free speech, anyone can say whatever they want, within certain reasonable limits. I certainly don't think any of the examples presented here are anywhere near any of those limits.

        People don't have a right not to be offended.

    • That reminds me of the time the mathies took over alt.niggers. The new FAQ pointed out that the newsgroup name was an acronym for "Number theory, Integration, Graph theory, Group theory, Enumeration, Recursion, Set theory".

  • If your firewall blocks 2600.com, do this... (Score:4, Informative)

    by i_want_you_to_throw_ ( 559379 ) on Friday June 28, 2002 @08:53AM (#3786260) Journal
    http://www.2600.ca

    :-) JC
  • Its about time that 2600 won a court case...especially one involving linking (or, mybe more appropriately, redirecting). I only wish that they were this unilaterally successful in defending themselves in their DVDCCA case (or, for that matter, even partially successful).

    -Turkey
  • Yes, America is held captive to money and power and corporations. But you know what? So is every other nation on earth that has ever existed! Only in America do politicians go to jail for taking bribes. Only in America do they lose their job for having affairs.

    The point is that, though the system is corrupt here, it's worse everywhere else, and has been worse. Think about it. 2600, a bunch described as hackers, vandals, criminals, terrorists, up against Ford Motor Company, which probably has bought thousands of politicians and other officials over the years. Anywhere else, the trial would be a foregone conclusion. 2600 would have been summarily ordered to stop whatever Ford didn't want them doing and that would have been it.

    • Re:America still works - sometimes (Score:1, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Re - Only in America etc
      And in the UK too ...

      Jeffrey Archer (British "Lord") is in jail for purgery: http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/uk/newsid_1447000 / 447880.stm [bbc.co.uk]

      Jonathan Aitken - went there for libel: http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/uk_politics/newsi d_593000/593724.stm [bbc.co.uk]

      The US isn't the only country with at least a semi-decent legal system, nor the only one with accountable politicians.

    • Only in America do politicians go to jail for taking bribes.
      ...
      The point is that, though the system is corrupt here, it's worse everywhere else, and has been worse.

      Who has moderated this post as insightful? It is nothing but misinformed stupidity. In (almost) all western countries politicians have been jailed for taking bribes. Maybe they did not loose their job for having affairs but then not everyone is as puritan as americans. And where are your facts concerning corruption?
      You are a typical American that has never moved is obese bottom out of his country.

  • Trademark Infringement? (Score:2, Informative)

    by 348 ( 124012 )
    This puzzles me. I see and understand both sides of this argument and in odd ways, support both sides. I am surprized Ford didn't go the trademark route, it seems that they would get more traction using a trademark infringement (working with GM)suit rather than the "wah wah wah, repointing" argument. Trademark laws although flawed in many ways are relatively clear. And all the freedom of speech stuff holds up only so far when it comes to trademark usage and ownership. Remember back a few years ago here on /. there was that guy who had the "sore Hands" sig, which was his link to his "I hate you" page for his former employer? Part of his downfall was his employer made use of his website against him and used the trademarked references as a slander argument. Couldn't the same apply here?



    Does anyone know what GM;s stance on this was? The article doesn't mention it at all.

    • Trademark only applies if you're confusing your product for theirs, and trademark dilution only applies if you're infringing for commercial purposes (in interstate commerce).
      • Trademark only applies if you're confusing your product for theirs, and trademark dilution only applies if you're infringing for commercial purposes


        For example, calling yourself "Island Mercury" if you were a car repair shop but not an authorized Ford dealer.

    • Remember back a few years ago here on /. there was that guy who had the "sore Hands" sig, which was his link to his "I hate you" page for his former employer? Part of his downfall was his employer made use of his website against him and used the trademarked references as a slander argument.

      What downfall? http://sorehands.com/ documented William Silverstein's legal battle to get worker's compensation from Microsystems/Learning Company/Mattel. He won a 6-figure settlement. They made a groundless libel counterclaim over his website, which was dismissed.

      He's still taking them to court to get it dismissed with prejudice, so they cannot later decide to refile.

  • Screw with their heads (Score:3, Funny)

    by dimer0 ( 461593 ) on Friday June 28, 2002 @09:19AM (#3786388)
    Set up some addresses in your host file, and make sure that takes precedance over DNS lookups.

    [fords-ip] fordbites.com
    [fords-ip] fordsucks.com
    [fords-ip] ... (you get the picture)

    Then sit and write a shell script that grabs their home page using each of these names, say, once per hour.

    They'll be looking at their logs, and see all these Hostname: headers coming through and be totally confused. They'll come after you for spreading these "trademark-tarnishing" domains to the world -- but little do they it's just some stupid script on your server.

    Actually, what may even be a bit cooler but takes more time - write a script that generates random Hostname: headers for all requests to Ford's servers..

    Hmm.
  • /- from 2600 -/

    Ford Motor Company has officially and unconditionally conceded its complete, utter, and perpetual loss on the merits of the FORD v. 2600 "FuckGeneralMotors.com" case. Ford has dismissed its appeal to the Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, meaning that Ford has completely given up all attempts to reverse the victory that 2600 Enterprises won on December 20, 2001. The mutually agreed dismissal papers were officially entered by the Sixth Circuit on June 27, 2002.

  • A Volvo repair shop near me is named "Island Vo Vo"; the L is silent, you see, because Ford really sucks.

    No, it's because a bunch of teenage vandals got together and stole the 'L' off the sign. Rather than spend money to buy a new letter, the repair shop simply renamed itself.
  • Once, long ago (like '99;) ) when I worked in web development I was part of a simliar situation. One of our clients had recently dumped another designer (big nasty situation really)... The firm they had been working with was a pretty nasty bunch, but they had control of the domain being used by this company. Out of spite they pointed this domain to porn...

    I realize that the company in question was really dumb in giving control of the domain to this group in the first place... but it did create a credibility problem for them..and that sucks.
    • I'm really surprised there was no legal recourse for the company involved since it was, at least in some sense, abuse of their property (the domain name) and probably their trademark.

      In this case, however, is wan't like you would REASONABLLY expect Ford to own the associated domain. 2600 bought it, it was theirs to do with as they pleased. IMHO, of course.

  • Slapp Suits are a terrible menace. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by uncoveror ( 570620 ) on Friday June 28, 2002 @09:44AM (#3786511) Homepage
    Slapp suits, that is suits meant to silence someone by falsely accusing them of libel or copyright infringement, knowing they don't have the resources to defend themselves, are a terrible menace to free speech. There should be greater consequences for wasting the courts' time with these. In some societies, anyone who came to court with a false accusation would recieve the same penalty the falsely accused would have recieved if convicted. If Ford were ordered to pay the amounts they sought from 2600, to 2600, then Slapp suits might go away. Trying them would be way to risky.
    • Anti-SLAPP legislation is a start, but in most of the world's court systems the loser pays ALL of the winners costs including legal fees. This stops most frivolous cases, but there are still a few SLAPP suits from large corporations.

      In Canada all civil cases (even a divorce case) can include the awarding of costs. This gives people a bit of incentive to be reasonable.

      America should consider making this change as it might help lesen the amount of litigation.

  • That's the thing about this that I don't understand. I could suggest that in this climate of widespread corporate malfeasance (Xerox, Worldcom, Tyco, Imclone, Enron, etc.), the extremely petty and stupid nature of this lawsuit might reflect poorly on them.

    That's the best explanation I can come up with. Does anybody else know their actual reasons for buckling? It's so uncharacteristic of a company that has the money to stop fighting even when they're completely wrong.

  • *sucks Domains (Score:4, Interesting)

    by waldoj ( 8229 ) <waldo&jaquith,org> on Friday June 28, 2002 @10:43AM (#3786898) Homepage Journal
    Does this set any sort of precedent (legal or practical) in favor of *sucks.* domain names? Is the owner of ClearChannelSucks.org [clearchannelsucks.org] on better footing now than he was a week ago? (I hope so. :)

    -Waldo Jaquith
  • But could'nt ford just as easily (and cheaply) put a little script in their page that checked for the refering web page?

    When it showed as 'fuckgeneralmoters.com' as the referer, simply redirect to a disclaimer?

    It seems that would be far more logical, save far more in legal fees, and would avoid any confusion.

    Again, I could be wrong.
    • You are correct, even better they could have caught it at the server level without any web page coding.
      They could have used it as a draw, not fought against it.
      Then again, the second anyone involves a corperate lawyer, all creativity disappears preceeded by reason.
      • I'd have to experiment to be sure, but I think the referer would be the page that linked to fuckgm.com, not fuckgm.com itself. That is, the referring page would be the one that was actually in the viewer's browser when the viewer clicked fuckgm.com. It wouldn't get changed by a simple redirect.
  • Slashdot Sucks :) Damn them for not suing me and making me famous!
  • Yea yea, they won the lawsuit.

    But Ford should have to reimburse them for attorney's fees and other damages.

    As long as big companies can do this kind of crap without having to pay for it, its going to keep on happening.

    What should happen is that Ford should be fined 10 times the damages for wasting 2600's time and the Court's time. That'll act as a deterrent for other companies who want to file frivolous law-suits.
    • In the UK the "loser" pays the "winner" court costs. I used to think this was correct, but after seeing the US system in play, I don't think that. Having the risk of being liable for the other parties court costs discourages the little guy from filing suits. Yeah, it sucks that you are out of pocket, but imagine if you decided to sue McDonalds, for example, wouldn't you approach it with a different perception, if you knew you could end up with a bill for thousands of dollars of lawyers fees if you lost? Wouldn't you maybe think it just wasn't worth it, even if you thought you had a good case, but weren't sure?
      • When its a big rich corporation v. a small organization or individual, the corproation should ALWAYS have to reimburse the individual/organization its legal costs.

        But private individual's or small organizations shouldn't necessarily have to reimburse the big corporation. If the corporation wants reimbursement, it should have bear a large burden of proof.
  • Besides being outrageous, Ford's actions also violate the basic ideals of the internet.

    Linking and domain-name-pointing is what makes the internet what it is. If I make a link --these assholes [ford.com], and you don't like it, tough shit. Same thing with domain-name pointing.

    If you have a problem with linking or domain-name pointing, get the fuck off the net.

  • 2600 is in the Wrong (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Pooua ( 265915 )
    No one likes having words put into their mouths. In essence, this is what 2600 is doing by pointing their registered domain name at unsuspecting sites. They may think it's funny, but what would Ford think if GM sued them?

    2600 argues that "no one in their right mind" would simply assume that Ford would put up such a domain name. They argue that "anyone in their right mind" would do a "whois" search to find out if Ford really put up the domain. Well, that's great that 2600 feels that comfortable with network technology. It's horrid that they have spent so much time in a small room together that they have forgotten that some people in this world have never heard of a "whois" search.

    2600 has proven once again that they are a bunch of arogant punks. <p. BTW, don't ever buy a copy of their magazine; you would taint their philosophy. If you are a true 2600 sort of person, you have to find some way to make illegal copies of 2600 magazine. It's up to you if your solution is economically feasible.

    • They may think it's funny, but what would Ford think if GM sued them?
      Uh, they'd likely laugh their collective asses off, considering the fact that it isn't Ford's domain. Even lawyers can do a basic whois lookup before filing a lawsuit. They do it all the time.
  • The company is kind of going down hill in some areas while progressing in others.

    Their R&D staff seems to be on top of things, only hindered by management.

    Every since Ford started offering "same-sex rights" the company has started going down the toilet. Soon they've be on the same level as GM.

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