At 05:31 PM 2/20/2002 -0800, Ryan S. Dancey wrote:
>[A similar argument was made by Microsoft, who kept asking the government 
>(despite all evidence

Prices for software are falling except for Microsoft's which is steadily 
climbing since 95. Er, erk, a..
Barely make's a Will save to avoid arguing further off topic.

>To be clear:  The people who operate kmartsucks.com could probably publish 
>anything they wished in print and distribute it in a tangible form, and 
>there's probably little K-Mart could really do to stop them.  They could 
>also put all that content on the web, so long as their DNS entries didn't 
>overlap with the protections extended by Congress into that space.  The 
>problem isn't so much the over-extension of trademark protections to 
>corporations as it is a recognition that the DNS system >sucks< at 
>creating a viable marketplace for brands.  There's too little context, and 
>too much value at stake for its own good.

I don't know about the specifics of kmart vs kmartsucks but most domain 
disputes are argued to ICANN or the domain registrars. They are not normal 
courts of law and initially they were easily "bought". Lately the 
registrars and ICANN have been siding with the *sucks sites as long as the 
site in question was not trying to deceive the user. A website that 
advertised fake sales at kmart is bad. A website that has testimony from 
people who dislike kmart and why, lately, has been defended successful.

But, as I said, very few of these sorts of disputes make it to a real judge 
in a real court. The registration agreements for domains requires that it 
go through arbitration as decided by the registrar.

   Joe
(Or least that's how I understand it. Standard disclaimers apply. These 
opinions are not the opinions of any person living or dead. Return to 
sender. IANAL blah-blah-blah.)

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