Because it has a name with 'toy' in it, and shows a children's product along with "negative" elements, etoy.com is again being pursued by a large toy company. Good thing one of their LEGO creations wasn't pictured doing Barbie. *** Begin of etoy email excerpt *** TOYWAR.defcon2: the next aggressor popped out of the toy box.... after eToys failed, one of the most successful TOY.giants in the world tries to "do business" with the etoy.CORPORATION: the wonderful LEGO(C)!.corporation! is this a global TOY.conspiracy? or just another corporate lawyer with a LEGO(C)!.brain? lawyers of the LEGO(C)!.corporation contacted the owner of the TOYWAR.com resistance site which had been in peace mode since the dismissal of the lawsuit against etoy (DEFCON 4 since february 2000). the etoy.MANAGEMENT had its first contact with the LEGO(C)!lawyers on Wed, 05 Apr 2000, 13:22:49. the following statements of a corporate counsel at LEGO Systems was forwarded by an anonymous TOYWAR.system operator: _____________________________________________________________ "...Your site contains images of LEGO(C) elements such as the two-way radio. Such use causes a risk of consumer confusion because the presence of the minifigures and the elements on the site gives the impression that your site is in some way related to or endorsed by the LEGO Company. In addition, your use of foul language, obscene and violent references in conjunction with images of our minifigures denigrates the goodwill we have built up in our products. We do not wish to have our products associated with such references.... ... As a result, we would ask that you remove all images of LEGO(C) minifigures and elements from your Web site immediately" ______________________________________________________________ the etoy.CORPORATION immediately triggered a corporate trademark alert, locked all etoy.TANKS and started to distribute gas masks for all involved employees who look like LEGO(C)!minifigures to cover their faces. THE COPYRIGHT HYGIENE TASK FORCE STARTED TO EXPEL ALL TOY CHARACTERS FROM THE etoy.SERVERS IN TONGA, AMSTERDAM, ZURICH, NEW YORK AND BUDAPEST WHO COULD NOT IDENTIFY THEMSELVES AS 100% LEGO-FREE-PIXEL PRODUCTS OR WHO HAD SEXUAL CONTACT WITH A LEGO(C)!minifigure WITHIN THE LAST 24 HOURS. the etoy.LABORATORIES are working on GENETIC TESTS to check all SHAREHOLDERS and etoy.FANS for LEGO(C).genes and LEGO(C).ideology. *** End of etoy email excerpt *** As usual, the etoy email becomes increasingly incoherent. I signed up to help them the first time through, but only received incoherent dribble. Plus, they didn't stop mailing me after I did their remove procedure. It sounds like they've agreed to remove all LEGO-based images.
