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The Courts Government News

New Ruling Makes Domain Name Theft Harder to Prove 61

Posted by Roblimo from the corporate-shenanigans-online dept.
vectro writes "This article from the San Jose Mercury News says there is a new ruling that you need more than a trademark to force someone to give up a domain name. The actual domain names in question were avery.net and dennison.net (Trademarks of Avery Dennison, the label company but also common last names), but this is a great precedent."
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New Ruling Makes Domain Name Theft Harder to Prove More

New Ruling Makes Domain Name Theft Harder to Prove

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  • Burger King (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    You know something? There are no Burger King(tm)s in Australia. Why? Because years ago some Australian guy set up a burger restaurant, called it 'Burger King' and registered the name, so Burger King(tm) have to use a different name in Australia.

    Is this bad? No, of course not. Why should Burger King(tm) be able to stomp in like a million pound gorilla and force the little guy to kiss their ass?

  • Re:Not so sure. (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Did you read the article? They didn't decide to protect squatters. They made it harder for a corporation to yank a domain from someone who was using it for a legitimate purpose. If someone's squatting they corporations shouldn't have any trouble proving their case. And your practice of grabbing lots of domains pisses me off :)
  • By DEFINITION, businesses belong in .com and should have zero power and say-so when it comes to .org and .net (unless you're non-profit or some sort of connectivity/ISP-for-ISPs).

    If I register ford.com, then yeah, Ford Motor Co. has a gripe with me. But if I register ford.org, then BY LAW it should be hands off to Ford and illegal to even attempt to sue me.

    Unfortunately, Internic, and now other registrars, don't seem to care about the com/org/net differences anymore. Only edu and mil stay true to their definitions.

    I guess the bottom line is that the little guys need a TLD(s) where they can register domains GURANTEED free of lawsuits by corps and businesses.

    Were it up to me, I'd allow infinite, unlimited TLDs. Domains would STILL have to be registered as domain.tld (both parts required for registration), but allowing anything to be used as a TLD. The TLD itself can never be registered to anyone and remains forever FREE for all to use and enjoy. This would END domain squatting. And it would theoretically END lawsuits because there would be room for all (e.g., apple.computers and apple.records and apple.farms, etc.)

  • While there have been a few cases of big companies going after a small, legitimate player who happens to have a domain name containing their trademark (ajax.org comes to mind), this is certainly not the norm. I do not agree that this is a 'great precedent'.

    As a small-time businessman, I would be extremely frustrated if a domain name speculator decided to hold a domain name containing my trademark hostage...

    As a small-time businessman, you would find it even more frustrating if some big-corporation IP-litigation terrorist decided to attack you over your domain name.

    As a case in point, I absolutely refuse to deal with Gateway2000, because of their record in engaging in such suits. As a matter of record,

    • Gateway Networking, Inc. (GNI) of Raleigh NC was into networking before Gateway2000 Computers (GW2K) was into computers.
    • GNI was on the Net before GW2K (not surprising for a networking company).
    • GW2K has trademarked Gateway2000", "Gateway2K", "GW2000", and "GW2K", but not the English word "Gateway"
    • GW2K sued GNI anyway, and forced a substantial out-of-court settlement (the details of which are not disclosed).
    There are also numerous other examples of such IP-litigation terrorism from GW2K (who seem to think they own rights to the Holstein cow in all contexts -- I don't see anything in trademark law which supports their suit against a state university's Ag department for using Holsteins on their web site!)

    (See Cornell's Legal Information Institute http://fatty.law.cornell.edu/ [cornell.edu] for the United States Code (as well as various other legal-information resources.)

  • Arse! Someone please moderate this down. Finger trouble made me hit submit instead of preview. I thought I'd caught it before it was sent, but obviously not. The "proper" comment is directly below...

  • Personally, I don't deal with mailbank, just in the same way I would never deal with any other cybersquater (corporate shithead, independentat shithead., venture capital shithead.. it doesn't make a difference, they're still a shithead).

    Why is the person who got there first a "shithead"? Do you feel the same way about the people who own all the land in your community? I'm sure a lot of them bought the property for next to nothing, too.

  • Hehehe, and just how do you prove an intent?

    If the domain registrant has half a brain, you can't. The cases that end up in court occur because (a) the registrant contacts a trademark holder with the intent to sell it, or (b) the registrant does something with the domain that is deceptively similar to a trademark holder's product.

    Besides, those who truly believe in anything, don't sit around and gratify/impress themselves with self-perceived eloquent speeches.

    Like, say, yours? I think the mystery has been solved: We now know who inherited Carl Sagan's stash of weed.

  • Since when is slashdot an organization with as _primary_ goal "making profit"? (the one reason that defines a company as for-profit).

    Slashdot is a commercial enterprise. The sale of the site to Andover should remove any doubts about that, I would think, and even before that the publishers never talked about making it a not-for-profit corporation.

    If you think the namespace gods should enforce a rule that .org be reserved for non-commercial organizations, Slashdot is one of the domain holders that would be affected.

    Personally, I think it's an archaic rule that never will be, and never should be, followed.

  • As a small-time businessman, I would be extremely frustrated if a domain name speculator decided to hold a domain name containing my trademark hostage to try and extort a few dollars from me.

    This ruling does not prevent you from seeking relief if a domain registrant is doing that to you. A person who registers a domain strictly for the purpose of reselling it to a trademark holder can still be sued. The new Senate cybersquatting law imposes penalties up to $100,000, so if the House passes the same law you've got another means of protecting your mark.

    What this ruling does is protect the guy who registered a domain similar to your trademark with no knowledge of your company and no desire to traffic on your trademark with his Web site.

    To protect against this, I've been reflexually registering domain names left and right which have anything to do with my work. This is annoying, time consuming, and expensive.

    This is your decision, not a requirement forced on your business by the domain-name structure. (Besides, how much money are we talking about -- you probably spend more on coffee.)

    Your trademark prevents people from operating a similarly named or marked business in the same jurisdiction who are selling the same category of products.

    It doesn't prevent anyone else from using the words in your trademark in ways that are unrelated to your business.

    You already have legal relief if someone appropriates your trademark and trades on the name of your business in a similar profession. You shouldn't expect similar relief simply because a URL contains the same word (or words) as your mark. It's an inappropriate extension of the trademark law, especially when the worldwide nature of the Internet is considered.

  • A commercial entity with no ties to the network infrastructure has absolutely no business having a .net domain.

    This is an archaic rule that has never been applied, and certainly should not be applied now. Thousands of Web sites are published in the .net TLD that are not networks, and thousands of Web sites are published in the .org TLD that are commercial in nature. You're on one now.

  • If a person is speculating on the domain name by trying to sell or scam money off of it, then they deserve to have it pulled from them by legitimate copyright holders. Otherwise they should be protected.

    Too broad. The only thing that should be restricted is registering a domain strictly for the purpose of selling it to a trademark holder with a similar mark.

    For instance, a word like "ivory" appears in dozens of trademarks. A person should have the right to register ivory.com simply because they believe it's a valuable URL.

    What they shouldn't be able to do is register ivory.com simply out of hopes that Procter & Gamble, the makers of Ivory soap, will pay big money to get it from them.

  • While I strongly agree with the comment that avery.net shouldn't be granted to this company on the basis, that they are not really network related, this doesn't keep NSI from granting "wrong" names.

    While it says, that .org domains should be used by non-profit organizations only, they don't enforce that rule (e.g. I once pointed out to them that some domain broker was using zh.org for his business, clearly showing that zh.org is anything but NON-profit, they said, the final use is up to the customer, and that this rule would merely be a recommendation, nothing more nothing less).

    The same problem exists in other countries as well, e.g. here in Switzerland (>130.000 registered domains in a country with ~7.5 million people) there are lots of registered domains that are either kept inactive or used in a misleading way. Contacting SWITCH (Swiss NIC) gave the answer, that they don't care too much about that after the domain has been paid up for.


    Personally, I'd vote for a change to force domain registrars to be non-profit organisations. Maybe then they'll start answering to reason instead of money.

  • Absolutely not. These moves are purely defensive, and contain absolutely no intent of extorting these names to other companies. The names have to do with MY work, and my work alone, and were chosen without any regard whatsoever to other companies or trade names.
  • I've dealt with a lot of domain transfers, and hate when the "recieving" organization demands this and that. It gives the holder a little more leverage to keep the domain, or get a fair price for their time/trouble--which does not mean $20,000 for a domain or anything, but a reasonable amount.

    -Buffy
  • Actually, I believe that there was a bit of a court dispute about that, and that Apple Computer ended up paying a few musicians (and their lawyers) a bit of cash, and promising to never go into the music business. Now I didn't follow the justification of this descision, but I believe that that's how it turned out.
  • I certainly feel that he is. But notice that he appears not to notice the fact. I suspect that in many cases those involved don't notice how inappropriately they are acting. For this reason it is my feeling that the fee for a URL should go up in a Fibbonacci sequence (starting at zero) multiplied by some constant. Thus the first URL would be free, the second would cost (say) $100, etc. (The $100 was choosen to keep the price for a dual URL to remain constant.)

    This would encourage the holders of multiple url's to maintain a gateway interpreter, with only one top level URL being needed.
    Additionally, I would recommend that some "personal" suffixes be standardized upon, say
    *.nam[a-z0-9] , this probably wouldn't be enough, but it sure would be a good start! Reserve these for individual users, rather than commercial, educational, or network users. True, at the moment most folk use an ISP, but if high speed always-on links become common, then users sites will probably become more common.
  • But I don't feel that they should ever have registered a second url. They have a perfectly legitimate url as it is. They shouldn't be allowed a second (or they should begin paying extra, and the cost increment should be exponential rather than merely linear).

    The excessive pollution of namespace costs everyone extra. Not that Avery should be singled out here. This hold for all holders of multiple url's. A gateway isn't that unreasonable to maintain. And there are lots of folk out there who want/will want to register their own url. If they all register any url that they can think of, finding anyone on the net will end up being most easily managed by TCP number (assuming that they even have a static one [but wait until TCP/IPv6!])
  • Nobody should have any prior rights to a second domain. That merely causes forwarding tables to be jammed with extra forwarding links (or adds extra hops to the message). They should implement these as internal links within their primary url... and then they could call it whatever they wanted to.
    Thus:
    http://www.avery.com/PaperSizing
    and
    ftp://www.avery.com/mainFtp
    and
    mailto://www.avery.com/obscure/filter/mailserv.s anderson
  • Maybe so, but Apple Corps. (the Beatles' record company) DID sue Apple Computer Co. because of the name.
    IMHO, the suit is complete BS, because really, who would mistake the two??!
    The two settled when Apple Computer agreed not to get into the music business.

    Guess what happened when all the great audio hard/software like ProTools came along?
    Yep, another lawsuit.

    Proving once again, some people are just idiots.

    pope
  • >To protect against this, I've been reflexually
    >registering domain names left and right which
    >have anything to do with my work. This is
    >annoying, time consuming, and
    >expensive

    And so is running a small business!

    Reflexually registering any domain names which have anything to do with your work is a lot different than registering the domain name that is your company name -- what did Avery Dennison think, that they could save the $100 and just let their domain name sit idly until they got around to paying for it?

    Come on, if they wanted to protect the name under the .net TLD, they should have back when they registered their .com. addres back in 1996? Or perhaps anytime since?

    It does look bad for them that avery.com was registered in 1996, showing that they recognized the importance of their trademark back then, yet didn't get around to recognizing the importance of the .net TLD until 2 years later?
  • I don't know. A quick check of the phone book shows 91 Avery's and 65 Dennison's so it's not like it's an unreasonable argument.
  • Sorry, but did you read the article? The ruling does not protect domain squatters. In fact, according to the article, the test that the appeals court used was that Avery Dennison's trademarks weren't "famous" enough (as separate names - if someone registered averydennison.net, I suspect the result would have been different) for them to assert a trademark conflict in a case where the domains at issue had been registered *in good faith* for purposes wholly unrelated to Avery Dennison's business. This means that companies like Disney, Coca Cola, Ford or (arguably) Intel, who have a global media presence would very likely pass the "famous mark" test and so would be able to force people who might have registered disney.com or intel.com to give up the domains. Of course, those companies have owned those domains for some time now, so it's kind of a moot point. This ruling also is not likely to conflict with the anti-cybersquatting bill in Congress, from what I understand of the bill.

  • So your definition of the American Dream is "shaft your friends in business, and screw their wives after work"?
  • As some people here have pointed out this is both good and bad. It's good from the perspective of the individual who registers a domain name to run his personal web site off of, and who happens to end up with a name that is trademarked or ends up being trademarked. I certainly dislike companies strong arming individuals out of their domain names with lawyers. (I think, in a good percentage of cases, if the company contacted the individual owning the domain and offered fair recompense in exchange for the domain, instead of immediately serving a cease and desist notice, they would get a much warmer response, and probably for less than the lawyer fees!)

    The decision has a bad side however because it means it is more difficult to wrest control of domain names from parasitical domain name registration companies that register mass blocks of domains and sell them for outrageous prices. Companies may be able to afford the markup, but individuals certainly can not. I really wish something would/could be done about companies like that, they provide no services, they just leech off the system.

  • >>The two settled when Apple Computer agreed not to get into the music business.

    That was true until Apple decided to bundle mics with their computers (they had sound... now a way to get sound into it...).

    End result? On the mac's I've seen, there's a sound called "sosumi".
  • Actually, Avery is somewhat common. Every here of Tex Avery? He was a cartoonist, and I KNOW you've seen is work. Anyone who watches Saturday morning cartoons has :)
    Dennison is a little bit more uncommon, but it's still not as uncommon as one would think. There are MUCH more uncommon names out there than Dennison and Avery (particularly Avery. Grab the White Pages for NYC sometime :).
  • So what does Burger king call themselves in Australia?
  • The "People Eating Tasty Animals" peta.org web page got moved to http://www.mtd.com/tasty/ [mtd.com] when the PETA folks got upset. It's still there, with some stuff about domain name disputes, but it hasn't been updated since 1996 as near as I can tell from a quick look.
  • It is easy to see both legitamate sides of the domain name argument.

    There are those who have trademarks who have put their hard earned money and valuable time into a project which they depend on for their livelyhood. It is understandable that they are pissed off when someone steals a domain that is their trademark.

    There are those who registered a domain name with the intent to use it for a valid purpose - without knowledge of trademark infringement - like people who register their last name. It is easy to see how they get pissed when some company registers "Jones" as a trademark and then comes after and rips their domain up from under them.

    I can empathize with both ends, and I think that the naming scheme needs to be revised, and rules set up. Initially, .org meant non-profit organizations, .com meant companies, and .net meant networks. But, as things got all muddled by money-hungry domain sellers, .com, .net, and .org can all be owned by the same company, organization, or network.

    I propose that they add a .tmk (or something similar) that denotes it is a registered trademark. That way, those owning legitamate trademarks could set up shop there, and all would know it was a legitamate site. Likewise, there could be a .fam (or something similar) to denote a family page - so someone with the last name "ford" could have a domain on a first-come, first serve basis.

    I don't know the underlying mechanisms of routing or domain-name lookups, but this solution would seem to be a lot better for everyone than releasing hordes of lawyers on the poor fella who registered a domain name several years to several minutes prior to a trademark registration.
  • Personally, I think if a person gets a domain name, in ALL INNOCENCE of any conflict, they should not be penalised or subject to harassment by large companies through the courts.
    True, true. But the thing is, how exactly are you going to know that the person purchased it in all innocence? Sure, they may have some company behind it, etc.. but they may be purchasing a domain that sounds like something popular hoping that [either] (a)they [bigger] corporation which their domain resembles will buy it from them for mucho $$ or (b)they're hoping to "cash in" on the resemblance hoping that, when people are looking for that other corporation's page(s) they'll stumble onto the smaller company/corporation's page, and the smaller company will get more $/more popular, etc.

    Of course, I also realize that (b) may not be such a big deal, but it's definitely not ALL INNOCENCE.

    Just thought I'd add my little to the fray.
  • Oh?
    Since when is slashdot an organization with as _primary_ goal "making profit"? (the one reason that defines a company as for-profit).
    The ads?

    I find that most of the time, the .net/.com/.org rules are obeyed.
  • Yeah, Travolta rocks.
    No, Burger King is just Burger King in France.
    But I also wonder what it's called in Australia.

    P.S. As a real Dutch guy I can affirm that fries with mayonaise are indeed delicious and that we don't eat them any other way.
  • I think it is great. Why would I not have the right to use my last name for my domain, just because some silly company decided to TM it? I guess then phonebooks would be full of TM infringements. Or what in the case of 2 companies in 2 different countries with the same name? (or even the same product? Budweiser comes to mind...) IMO it would be easiest to just restrict the number of domain-names an entity (company/person/organisation/whatever) can own.
    why would anyone need 3 zillion domains? This should also lessen many cybersquatting problems.
    Oh well.. maybe I'm just being naive again

  • But when people take domain names like disney.com or intel.com or something that obvious, I think they shouldn't get shit.

    I agree, as long as the person registered it only with the intent of selling it later, slandering the company, etc. In the case of a "common name", big companies with their million-dollar lawyers shouldn't be allowed to force an individual into giving up the domain name. I am reminded of the ty.com struggle between Ty (maker of stuffed toys, esp. beanie babies) and a computer programmer who bought the domain name resembling the name of his son, Ty. The individual owned the domain for years before Ty (toy company) discovered the Internet, and when they decided to use that domain name, the individual was ordered to give it up or show up in court. Unfortunately, the individual could not afford court costs, and had to relinquish control of the domain name.

    Someone earlier mentioned the "bully in the schoolyard" metaphor, and I agree with them 100%. To sum it up: domain squatters are stupid and annoying, but large companies abuse their power to the extent of wanting to own specific rights to a common word. Go, capitalism!

    -K


    --
  • I think it is bullshit. "A man who doesn't work for his money ain't worth shit." Maybe there are some instances where it isn't clear. But when people take domain names like disney.com or intel.com or something that obvious, I think they shouldn't get shit. It is stealing. For example some companies (i.e. Intel) give a profit share to every employee based on profit. If they have to spend money on a domain name, the person who gets that money is taking money away from every employee of the company. It is an exploit and all those who try to get rich quick from this are worthless in my eyes. And I'd imagine many others think the same.
  • What was the final outcome of the aolsearch.com dispute? AOL scarfed the domain from someone who was using the site. Will they be forced to give it back to her (with restitution, I hope)?

  • Burger King is called Hungry Jacks (?) Jack's (?)
    Something like that...
  • So what does Burger king call themselves in Australia?

    Burger Royale.. oh wait that's in france?

    :-)
  • I agree...but my point was tha registering a domain name to extort money from a large corporation is no better that a large corporation strongarming a domain name away from the average guy.
  • "Avery" and "Dennison" are common names? I'd buy this if they were "Smith" and "Jones". How many other "common names" has this guy registered. Maybe Panasonic...Nissan...Burger and King
  • I can actually believe that companies think that they have rights to something they don't. Guess what, i have names for each room in my home. Even my front door is named COM. My bedroom is named COKE, my office is named FORD. Do you think it would surprise me to see these guys come after me? ABSOLUTELY NOT.
    Now, I don't actually have my rooms named, but sake of the argument, this was our world first. Where were the big corps during the BBS days? No, they want to wait until something becomes popular, something that individuals like ourselves made popular, let us do the dirty work, let us invest our time, our drive for freedom of information, then from out of a snake hole, comes the big corps to claim the gold.
    I have no sympathy for corps and and their names. At least not when it comes to each room in OUR home.
    What's kind of funny is that large corps who come after us for names, monopolizing the internet are the same companies who whine in court because microsoft doesn't play fair. I don't have any sypathy for those companies either. I come from a strong microsoft platform background as a developer. recently i made a serious commitment to Linux. Why, because I have a choice, not like the other venders preach.
    Similary, there's no room in my book for whining companies over internet resources that someone else started.
    Large corps that pull this kind of stunt, are as low as the lawyers they hire.

    the end.
  • The Avery decision is great news for every individual Netizen who is attacked by a large trademark holder with a specious claim of infringment. How many individuals can afford to go to court in order to retain their domain names when NSI's or ICANN's dispute policy takes it away though?

    My son's domain name clorox.org was taken away by NSI because the Clorox bleach folks felt it constituted infringement. After hounding him at school with fedexes and angry phone calls, NSI simply took it away for them. By contract, all registrants agree to abide by the NSI "dispute policy."

    Right now, ICANN is debating a new dispute policy that makes one long for the good old days of NSI. Meeting in Santiago, the board is busily resisting attempts by individuals and little guys to have a voice in selecting the policy.

    The Cyberspace Association is seeking recognition as the individual's constituency, and has just been rejected ... again. In the meantime, armies
    of trademark lawyers are setting up the new dispute policy in a way that amounts to big business' asserting total colonial occupation of cyberspace. Get ready, your domain name is free speech: under these new policies, all internet speech may be reduced to the status of property, which will be managed in the way that works best for business.

    People should consider viewing the meetings (www.berkmancenter.org) and letting their viewpoints be known... or finding out more about the Cyberspace Association at www.democracy.org/idno.

  • What nobody seems to understand is that trademarks are legally protected against misuse only in a limited area of business. Thus Steve and Steve were able to start a computer company and call it "Apple", and they weren't infringing on the trademark of Apple records.

    There would be nothing legally wrong with my purchasing "ford.com" (if I could), as long as I didn't use it to sell cars.

    But domain name squatters are still the third lowest form of scum on the net, after spammers and script kiddies. But there's nothing we can do about them, other than refusing to give in to their demands.
    --
  • ...but then, it might not.

    It might make large companies all the more vicious in their dealings, scared of losing out.

    Personally, I think if a person gets a domain name, in ALL INNOCENCE of any conflict, they should not be penalised or subject to harassment by large companies through the courts.

    Likewise, if a person gets a domain name for the explicit purpose of damaging a company (through reputation, or financially) then I don't recommend they write a book on how to win friends & influence people.

    Company names like "Ford" are difficult, as it's so common a word, as a personal name, the name of a water crossing, and the verb describing a type of movement through water. How can you prove what was intended?

    The simple answer would seem to be: Well, what's the TLD? If it's a .com, then it would be reasonable to assume they mean the company. If it's something else, it's probably one of the other meanings.

    Conflict is only going to exist if there are no SOLID, ENFORCED ground-rules on the type of domain you take out.

  • While there have been a few cases of big companies going after a small, legitimate player who happens to have a domain name containing their trademark (ajax.org comes to mind), this is certainly not the norm. I do not agree that this is a 'great precedent'.

    As a small-time businessman, I would be extremely frustrated if a domain name speculator decided to hold a domain name containing my trademark hostage to try and extort a few dollars from me. To protect against this, I've been reflexually registering domain names left and right which have anything to do with my work. This is annoying, time consuming, and expensive.

    Trademark law is designed to provide protection to a term, phrase, or symbol to identify a specific product or company. Allowing unbridled infringement in the domain name area is dangerous business, and serves to dilute the value of that company's mark.

    It is rarely the case of a 'big evil corporation' going after the little guy. Usually, it's an opportunist huckster trying to scam a few bucks off of value that they did not create. They get no sympathy or support from me, and I'm suprised that they're getting it from folks in this forum.
  • While I agree with your last point, I strongly disagree with your argument in general. This IS a good precedent to set for several reason, IMHO.
    First and formost we have a Judicial body recognizing that there IS a difference between .com, .net and .org, and that many organizations have abused the registration process in an effort to "protect" their trademarks (and NSOL abuses it daily). A commercial entity with no ties to the network infrastructure has absolutely no business having a .net domain. .com was originally reserved for normal companies, IIRC, and that's where they should have sayed.
    Second is that, in general, Tradmark law has been applied only in cases where the offender was involved in the same industry as the original owner. There is absolutely NOTHING that Ford Motor Co. can do to me if I were to open a computer repair shop called Ford Computing Services. There would also be nothing they could do to me if I had opened this shop ten years ago, and owned the domain ford.com.
    I believe the ruling was intended to force a company who wishes to steal a domain from a previous registrant to prove actual harm to the company. If there is no harm to be proven, and particularly if the tradmark holder is in a different industry than the domain owner, there is nothing the holder can do. Don't like it? Tough. Trademark law is almost as silly as Patent law, however, I CAN understand the point behind Trademarks, I CAN'T understand the point behind software patents.
  • By "...reflexually registering domain names left and right which have anything..." to do with your work, aren't you committing the same offense -- or at least, having the same effect -- as those you argue against? Shouldn't you simply pick the single, most appropriate, domain and let others, with their legitimate interests, have the others?

  • Right decision (Score:3)

    by Tet ( 2721 ) <`ku.oc.enydartsa' `ta' `todhsals'> on Wednesday August 25, 1999 @03:45AM (#1726974) Homepage Journal
    I'm pleased to see this. It is without doubt the right decision, because:
    • Avery Dennison is in no way related to network infrastructure, so they certainly shouldn't be granted exclusive use of a .net domain.
    • As the article says, others have a legitimate claim on the domain. Just because it happens to be someone else's trademark has little bearing on anything. The domains aren't being used to infringe the trademark -- they're being used in a completely different context.
    • There's only room for one of each domain on the Internet, and first come first served is as good a way of deciding who gets what as any other. Otherwise, domain ownership will turn into a farce, where the corporation that can afford the most lawyers always wins.

  • pffft (Score:3)

    by Accipiter ( 8228 ) on Wednesday August 25, 1999 @03:37AM (#1726975)
    I don't think it's right to grab a domain (let's say ford.org), and wait for the company to pay you big bucks to take that domain from you. However, as in the case with earth.com, I DO think that the person who registered the domain, and is currently using it, has a right to continue using it under the name he/she chose.

    These kinds of Corporations are the big bully in the schoolyard. They get a kick out of picking on the defenseless kids by the wall, and they get a domain name out of it too. Nice to see laws like this are being put into effect. (That earth.com deal really hit me.)

    -- Give him Head? Be a Beacon?

  • Then you're part of the problem (Score:4)

    by 0xdeadbeef ( 28836 ) on Wednesday August 25, 1999 @04:37AM (#1726976) Homepage Journal
    I've been reflexually registering domain names left and right which have anything to do with my work. This is annoying, time consuming, and expensive.

    I don't know what you've been registering, but it sounds like what Colgate-Palmolive has done, registering hundreds of English words related to personal hygene.

    If this is what you've been doing, then you're just as bad as a squatter! Except rather than extorting companies with identifiable names, you're snatching up the namespace to deny others entry into the market. A monopolist, rather than a thug, but still abusing the system.

    They get no sympathy or support from me, and I'm suprised that they're getting it from folks in this forum.

    We don't have sympathy for the squatters, we have antipathy towards the bureaucrats and corporate hucksters who think they have "rights" to particular domain names. They just don't seem to grok that DNS was not designed to protect trademarks, and trademarks were never intended to be implemented globally. Their own wrong assumptions are what's causing the problem. Squatters are no different than they are, just opportunists trying to make an easy profit.

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