Good evening, everyone! Actually, it sounds like, in this case, google has rights to the domains because the other side didn't bother to show up to argue its side.
But yes, I think Gridasov would have lost anyway since the case is similar existing trademark law. If you or I were to start a car-repair or car-parts facility named "Forde" or "Gee-eM", attorney's from the respective companies (can you guess which ones?) would descend like locusts and demand a cease-and-desist court order and probably damages to compensate for the loss of reputation, etc. (Of course, that assumes that you got the legal name past the State corporate registration folks.) It's also similar to what is covered by existing cybersquatting law that allowed large corporations to take over web sites named after their trademarks without paying exhorbitant prices. On the one hand you could argue that a free capitalist system should allow someone who has obtained some property (in this case, a domain name) full ownership of such property. And, you could argue that someone who has an interest in something was derelict if they did not protect their legal right to it. On the other hand, you could argue that a person who has done nothing to make the property valuable has less right to it than the person (or organization) which has spent millions or even billions of dollars making it have value. Whatever your opinion of the matter, this is certainly NOT a good case to attempt to argue that Gridasov should get to keep the domains. A person using shady methods to acquire and keep property that he is using for nefarious purposes is not exactly what I would call a "sympathetic plaintiff." Even if you want to "stand on principle," there are still times to breathe a sigh of relief that a case didn't go to court. Lowell C. Savage It's the freedom, stupid! Gun control: tyrants' tool, fools' folly. > Good morning, everyone... > > The following was borrowed from another newsgroup that appears here > locally, which made me want to ask a question: > > GOOGLE WINS TYPOSQUATTING CASE > > Google has the rights to several misspellings of its domain name, > according to a decision by the National Arbitration Forum (NAF). Google > had filed a complaint against Sergey Gridasov, a Russian man who had > registered domain names of googkle.com, ghoogle.com, gfoogle.com and > gooigle.com, saying that he was profiting from Google's name with the > domains, which are common mistypings of google.com. Gridasov reportedly > used the domains to redirect Web surfers to sites that would download > various kinds of malware to their computers. Because Gridasov did not > respond to the complaint, the NAF was compelled to accept the allegations > in Google's complaint. According to the NAF, Gridasov is not entitled to > use the domains, which are confusingly similar to Google's. Reuters, 8 > July 2005 > > http://today.reuters.com/business/newsArticle.aspx?storyID=nN78398318 > > So, in other words, Google has the rights to domains because people cannot > type? > > Dave _______________________________________________ Libnw mailing list [email protected] List info and subscriber options: http://immosys.com/mailman/listinfo/libnw Archives: http://immosys.com/mailman//pipermail/libnw
