Slashdot Mirror

Delusion_: freelegoporn.com is not cybersquatting. It's parody. The difference is crucial.

Just because a rights-holder says otherwise doesn't make it so.

Seconded. In fact, I remember another case where the court—wrongly—grabbed a domain name simply because of its resemblance to another site: etoy.com vs. etoys.com. etoy came first, but somehow eToys managed to suck up to a judge and lay claim to etoy.com, however temporarily. It may have had something to do with the fact that eToys thought it had a trademark for a vibrant, useful commerce site while that Johnny-come-earlier was pushing that wishy-washy pinko art.

This is the sort of thing the judiciary has to consider carefully when looking at a case where domain names rub a little too close together. And with the press continuing for domain names, the situation will only get worse.

Lack of space?

A cheap shelving unit would solve that problem. I got a nice metal shelving unit (similar to this but with only three shelves) a while back that looks good and holds quite a bit of stuff. Plus, it's completely open so I don't have to worry about heating issues like with a fully enclosed "media center" rack (I never understood why you'd put hot, sensitive electronics in a fully enclosed rack).

Finite number of inputs into my TV?

Get a mux. My current personal favorite is the AA1154 component switch. If you don't need component, you can get switches for composite/s-video or even DVI (and thus HDMI, since the two convert back and forth easily). Granted, the Audio Authority switches are expensive, but there are many PRODUCTS&cm_ite=1%20PRODUCT&cm_keycode=4">other options out there depending on the feature you want and the price you're willing to pay.

My parents were very careful to get us mostly "classic" toys when we were kids - lots of construction sets. Legos, Robotix, Capsela, Construx, lots of stuff where you could let your imagination run wild and create whatever toy you wanted. This went hand-in-hand with Lionel trains, and pretty much anything with a German name that was made out of wood. (Brio, anyone?) They also strictly limited our TV time, didn't get cable, and encouraged us to pursue a myriad of interests to give us a wide range of hobbies and experience.

So what happened? Instead of going to college and studying Computer Science, I decided to try a liberal arts major in English and study a wide variety of subjects. Now I can't get a job and in all probability will die peniless and alone in the gutter. Want my advice? Buy them a McDonald's Play Restaurant Set and teach them to hang drywall. Trust me, they'll thank you in the long run.

You need to get over your favorite language/technology/term you read in the trade-rag you read last week. And then you need to get over yourself.

Give it up slashdot crowd. mod_perl is not a valid technology for a large scale website! Perl was designed for a task, and that task was NOT enterprise application development.

Spoken like someone who has never had to build a very large site (doing "real" work) completely in Perl/mod_perl. I can tell you that it most certainly can scale to enterprise needs. Did this guy do it right? I don't think so either but he most certainly learned a valuable lesson. Hopefully other people will study what he has done and improve their own systems based on his work.

For the record, Java wasn't built for enterprise application development either. As with Perl, people discovered that Java had a future there and here we are today.

A properly designed website with n-tier sepperation will be able to handle a large load and scale infinitly. You'll note that large websites who actually do real things besides logging people's daily problems don't use mod_perl and a thousand servers. There's a reason for this.

You're assuming two dangerous things... (1) That you can't have n-tier and Perl. And (2) that large mod_perl sites require lots of servers. To believe any of these things is to demonstrate your horrific misunderstanding of computer science in general. I pity the company that lets you design their architecture. Wait, no I don't.... I'll gladly take their money for fixing your mistakes.

Oh yeah, and let us not forget some other languages that are showing promise... specifically Python+Zope. In fact, I know of several people implementing n-tier applications with PHP on the front, Python in the middle and PostgreSQL in the back with much success.

And for the record, here are some large companies and sites heavily using mod_perl.

Want more?

A close cousin of the skateboarding Aibo can be found here.

I'm an idiot that should use the preview button.

KB Toys - GTA3

eToys.com - GTA Vice City

Many of us saw this coming, but that's beside the point. But personally, I'd rather see VA fold than become a commercial software house. What does VA's new focus mean to us? Well:

• Say goodbye to OSDN. And I don't just mean OSDN, as in, "VA hires a bunch of people to write Linux software." I mean, VA has no reason to support Slashdot, Sourceforge, Themes.org, and other very expensive sites that produce zero revenue. They will probably just sell the sites off to the highest bidder (who will just want the accumulated customer data, and shut the sites down). As we have seen in the past, privacy policies mean squat after a business has been sold.
• Say goodbye to UNIX support. It's expensive to develop for UNIX compared to Windows. VB programmers are a dime a dozen and can be hired for $30k a year, so why would a software company want to hire anyone else? The former "LNUX" will soon be in bed with Microsoft before we know it.
• The removal of the "LNUX" ticker symbol will be another vote of non-confidence in Linux to pointy-haired managers who watch CNBC all day but don't have a clue about technology. Really. The business community will believe "Linux is dead" and it will be an uphill struggle to regain their confidence.
• Augustin et al are willing to sell out their friends and scam anyone in order to make a quick buck. One needs to look no farther than the unscrupulous activities that happened on LNUX opening day to see what a shady company VA is. Our trust has been misplaced.

The future is looking bleak. Our biggest cheerleader has switched sides on us and we are going to be in serious trouble. I certainly hope the Linux community can survive this ordeal.

-CT

Don't forget that MAPS is free for individuals' mail servers. It only costs if your server is for a business. This sounds wholly reasonable for me.

Yeah, of course. Because we all know that businesses have lots of money.

If legitimate but similar names start being subject to this kind of monetary damage ($65M, from the article), I fear for the future. Let's hope this stays well in hand.

--

Also of interest to the Slashdot crowd: Mindstorms are cheap. It feels sort of vulture-like, but $100 for a Robotics Invention System is pretty good. If you're ordering, balance against the possibility of them going bankrupt before they ship it.

Seriously, where do you draw the line? who gets to decided which cases to hear, and what rules do they follow? If it's these guys at ICANN, then perhaps, but WIPO? Yeesh. Say goodbye to your sovereignty, little country.

So what's up next for altavista's legal team? How about evicting astalavista.com?

There can be no democracy without participation

Seriously, where do you draw the line? who gets to decided which cases to hear, and what rules do they follow? If it's these guys at ICANN, then perhaps, but WIPO? Yeesh. Say goodbye to your sovereignty, little country.

So what's up next for altavista's legal team? How about evicting astalavista.com?

There can be no democracy without participation

Lite Brite

If I register etoys.com, I should be automatically be given, for free, permenently, etoy.com, because this is likely a typo, and the person obviously wanted to go to etoys.com.

No, no, no. I wanted to go to etoy.com, but accidentally typed etoys.com. Because this is the U.S. and no one is responsible for their mistakes, etoys should be given free to etoy. Besides, they (etoy) were there first. See below:


Registrant:etoy (ETOY-DOM) zwinglistr. 31 Zuerich, zuerich 8004 ch Domain Name: ETOY.COM Administrative Contact, Billing Contact: Michel, Zai (ZM93) etoyzai@AGENT-ZAI.DE etoy Schoenbrunnstr. 88 Vienna 1001 1001 AU +41 79 321 59 40 Technical Contact, Zone Contact: Fabio, Gramazio (GF1088) gramazio@ETOY.COM etoy Zwinglistr. 31 Zuerich 8004 CH +41 1 242 40 81 (FAX) +41 1 241 60 52 Record last updated on 11-Feb-2000. Record expires on 14-Oct-2000. Record created on 13-Oct-1995.

Registrant:etoys (ETOYS3-DOM) 3100 Ocean Park Blvd., Suite 300 Santa Monica, CA 90405 US Domain Name: ETOYS.COM Administrative Contact, Billing Contact: Admin, eToys (AE247-ORG) admin@ETOYS.COM eToys, Inc. 3100 Ocean Park Blvd., Suite 300 Santa Monica, CA 90405 US (310) 664-8100 Fax- - (310) 664-8101 Technical Contact, Zone Contact: eToys HostMaster (EH139-ORG) hostmaster@ETOYS.COM eToys Inc. 2850 Ocean Park Blvd., Suite 225 Santa Monica, CA 90405 US +1 310 664 8100Fax- +1 310 664 8101 Fax- - +1 310 664 8101 Record last updated on 08-Apr-2000. Record expires on 04-Nov-2009. Record created on 03-Nov-1997.

Shame on you Toysmart...I would have expected better from a toy company.

Why on earth would you have expected better? A company is still a company (or a section of a corporate megalith, depending), regardless of whether they sell toys or guns. After all, eToys certainly qualifies as a toy company, and we know what we think of them...

Here's an article about the whole thing.

When I decided to buy Quake III (like that was much of a decision), I went to eToys and bought the tin case version. I had yet to see the box, but I still decided to buy the nicer packaging.

Can any of you explain this one? I'm stumped.

Dane
(like the dog)

You must be a college student or probably just learned how to program. An IDE is a tool, that may simplify certain tasks in certain environments.

That's a pretty inflamatory remark. I'm not a college student, and I've been progrmming for over 15 years, yet I tend to agree with the original poster. At every company I've worked at, almost no-one used IDE's because most state of the art IDE's suck. Virtully all existing IDE's are a crappy note-pad like editor with a "compile" button, a cheesy GUI builder, and a lame excuse for project management.

If the question is "Do you consider an IDE useful?", the answer is definitely yes. All it takes is trying to manage a project with 20 - 50 files each with a 1000 or more lines of code to quickly turn one against bare bones editors and towards IDEs.

Explain how increasing the number of files makes an IDE more useful? The project management features of most IDEs are a joke. The project I'm working on has over 6000 source files. We don't use an IDE. We use a revision control system for managing our files, and tools like ctags and cscope for finding things. How would an IDE help us? Oh, and did I mention that our source files are in at least 6 different languages?

Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against IDE's per se. It's just that every IDE I've ever seen has had a bunch of annoying problems. They tend to be difficult or impossible to extend, they don't let you use your favorite editor, they're not cross-platform, and they're usually tied to a particular language. The vast vajority of GUI editors also suck big time, because almost all of them use coordinate placement of components (instead of proper geometry/layout management).

An IDE is a tool. But trying to build real software with today's IDE's is like trying to build a house with tools like these. If a better IDE comes along, I might start using it. But today I'll stick with bash and VIM as my development environment.

the difference is that with the chineese government getting pissed off at it, CFInet loses $1800 and 15 days of revenue. Quick but painful slap on the wrist, and the whole thing is more or less over 15 days later, however long the damage to the psychological state of the employees lasts.

if it had been an american corporation pissed off at a small american website, meanwhile, it would be a lot more drawn out. The small website would have had to deal with either a crippling "settlement", or legal bills costing thousands and thousands of dollars stretching years into the future with no determinate end to the hassle, except that it will more than likely end with the small website running out of money to pay for the legal bills because the corporation is doing nothing but stall tactics for the sole purpose of making the small website run out of money to pay for the legal bills, finally giving up and entering a crippling "settlement", and probably quietly going out of business a month later.

On the other hand, there's a good chance the people running the small american website would become instant celebrities, getting posted on Slashdot [meaning they get some pretty huge exposure from the whole thing, and probably a lot of banner ad hits as they get slashdotted]. If they get lucky, they may even get an offer to have the legal bills handled by the ACLU, and if they get really really lucky (or if the small website is really impressive and the large corporation is really hypocritical) they may even get a benefit album or hundreds of people mirroring their information.
At any rate, unless the small american website slips underneath everyone's radar (which does happen, a LOT, and in which case the small website is simply fucked over) the information the corporation doesn't want to let out will get a LOT of attention that it wouldn't have gotten otherwise.

Meanwhile in China if you say something to piss off the government you have nothing protecting you. No one will help you, no one will organize massive campaigns in your name, slashdot will not notice your existence unless there is some kind of major vote in the american congress that day or your company uses linux or something, and you will simply become another victim of the government very, very quietly, with no outcry or notice because, hey, these things happen every day, no one is paying attention, and what's the use of protest anyway? it's not like you're going to change anything.

You decide who's better off.

1. Do you have a great domain name? Before VA bought them, Linux.com's value was based entirely on the domain name.
2. Are you getting hits and more importantly, are you retaining these hits and for how long? Do they have a reason to come back regularly?
3. What kind of stats are you gathering? Are you tracking your visitors' paths through your site? Where are they coming from? Where/why are they leaving? Etoys.com tracks their users' paths through the site so they can see what people are interested in and feed them banners/links accordingly.
4. Do you have a way to gather information about your users? Do you have quality demographics? Demographics are worth money. Why do you think grocery stores give you membership cards?
5. What kinds of click-throughs can you offer your banner advertisers?

You want original, try the train driver game...boy, now that's wierd.

Funny that they haven't taken down eToys.com yet :)

ETOYS FINALLY DROPS LAWSUIT, PAYS COURT COSTS
Waited a month to make good on promise, just in time for earnings report

Contact: mailto:etoyfund@rtmark.com
More information: Press cverage, RTMark etoy Projects, etoy Toywar Platform, Shell Oil, Nazi toy

Four weeks ago, Internet toy giant eToys announced to the press that it was "moving away" from its lawsuit against European art group etoy in response to the torrent of public outrage. As the weeks went by without further action, however, many activists decided that eToys' words had represented a typical corporate ploy to derail opposition, and that the company had no intention of actually dropping the suit.

Activists quickly renewed their campaigns against eToys. RTMark initiated two new campaigns to drive eToys' stock price yet further down (it has now sunk well below its opening value of $20 per share, after a high of $67 reached the day the protests began), and a new community platform, http://www.toywar.com, gathered a "toy army" of 1400 activists poised to perform "operations" on command.

The strongest attack to date was scheduled to coincide with eToys' earnings announcement on Thursday. Today, just in time, eToys formally dropped its case against etoy "without prejudice"--a phrase that means either party is still free to attack the other. eToys has also formally agreed to pay etoy's court costs and other expenses incurred as a result of the lawsuit.

"A precedent has now finally been set in stone," said RTMark spokesperson Ray Thomas. "eToys thought it could act like corporations typically do, but it had no idea how the Internet works. Now e-commerce corporations have a choice: either obtain a legal stranglehold on the Internet, so that this kind of defensive reaction is no longer possible, or behave decently towards the humans who use this medium for purposes other than profit."

"This is the Brent Spar of e-commerce," said Reinhold Grether, an Internet researcher and a mastermind of the anti-eToys campaigns. "Just as the petroleum industry learned it had to listen to environmentalists, so e-commerce companies have now learned that the Internet doesn't belong to them, and they can't do whatever they want with it." (See http://rtmark.com/shell for more about the Brent Spar, and http://www.hygrid.de/etoyrhiz.html for more comments by Grether.)

"eToys will try to paint this as a misunderstanding, as just a simple error that has now been corrected," wrote etoy in a prepared statement. "But this is not what happened. They tried to destroy us, and that got them into very big trouble. They wanted to drop their case 'with prejudice,' because they fear further attacks and trademark battles, but now they see they have no choice at all in the matter. It is a total victory."

WHAT NOW?

Even though etoy has recovered its domain, the etoy Fund will not be retired, said RTMark spokesperson Thomas. Each project's discussion board will continue to function, and the resources of the etoy Fund pages will continue to be accessible for use and research.

"We hope that this campaign continues to serve as a reminder to people of what corporations do when left to their own devices, and as a reminder to corporations of what they cannot do, at least on the Internet," said Thomas. "We also hope people continue expressing their anger at eToys, if they so choose. There are many ways to embarrass and further damage this company--the Nazi figurine eToys advertises could lead to a boycott by Jewish groups, for example." Another immediate option would be a class-action lawsuit by eToys investors, said lawyer and RTMark member Rita Mae Rakoczi. "It could convincingly be argued that eToys, being an Internet company, should have known what it was getting into, and has seriously mismanaged its stockholders' money. If etoy's possession of etoy.com is so dangerous-- as perhaps it really is--why didn't eToys choose a different name for the company when they had the chance? And why did they choose to pursue in an openly hostile manner an art group best known for a piece called the 'Digital Hijack,' which made sophisticated use of technology to playfully attack users' browsers? It wouldn't take an Einstein to predict trouble."

"If eToys stumbled into this through sheer stupidity and negligence," Rakoczi continued, "it could be liable to investors for part of the $4 billion in value that's been lost as a consequence. A successful lawsuit could even entail eToys losing its own trademark, which would likely mean the end of the company." RTMark has set up a page containing links to resources on class action lawsuits against corporate managements.

"Things on the Internet don't go away," said etoy in its statement. "'Brick and mortar' corporations do this sort of thing and then bury it--but this will always be there when you search for information on eToys. It will always be very visible what bastards they were. They can never recover from this." The 1400 "Toywar soldiers" mustered by http://www.toywar.com will remain on high alert, according to the platform's operators, and are prepared to spring into action at the slightest indication of further aggression by eToys.

"And Network Solutions had better be careful, too," etoy said. "We will not tolerate any delay in the reinstallation of the etoy.com DNS entries." Network Solutions, the company in charge of Internet domains, illegally terminated etoy's e-mail shortly after the November 29 injunction, although no such move was required by the order. (See http://rtmark.com/etoyvaticano.html for another example of illegal behavior by Network Solutions.)

BACKGROUND AND TIMELINE

Late last year, eToys attempted to buy etoy.com from European art group etoy, and offered upwards of $500,000 in cash and stock options for the domain. etoy turned down the offer, so on November 29, 1999, eToys obtained a court injunction preventing etoy from operating a website at www.etoy.com, which had been registered before eToys even existed. To obtain the injunction eToys told the judge that etoy.com was confusing customers, and furthermore that it contained pornography and calls to violence. etoy.com had never made any reference to eToys or toys, nor featured anything resembling pornography or calls to violence.

During the subsequent weeks, activists attacked eToys by a variety of means that have been widely credited with contributing to the 70% decline in the value of eToys stock--a decline that began the same day as the protests.

The Dec. 15-25 Virtual Sit-in crippled the eToys servers, as CNN reported, and prompted eToys to file a restraining order against one of the organizations responsible for it, and to threaten another activist anonymously.

Simultaneously, the Disinvest! campaign filled eToys investment boards and other outlets with messages about the situation. Many investors responded by dumping their eToys stock. Even those who refused to see a link between activist attacks and the eToys stock fall were at a loss to explain how it could lose so much money, so consistently, on consistently good financial news. Some suspected foul play by eToys management, and the possibility of a class-action lawsuit was raised.

Finally, on December 29, eToys announced it was "moving away" from its lawsuit in response to public outrage. At first, etoy and the activists were delighted, and a formal counterpart to the statement was expected from hour to hour. Then, when nothing happened for days and then weeks, it became clear that eToys' announcement had been an empty verbal concession it had no intention of making concrete--a typical corporate ploy to derail activist momentum.

Activists quickly renewed their campaign to damage eToys. Perhaps startled by the endurance of its opponents, and nervous about further attacks and proof of instability during the week it is to announce its quarterly earnings, eToys today--at 15:20 Pacific Standard Time, to be exact--finally backed down on paper, ceding full rights to etoy.com on etoy's terms, without precondition and with payment of court costs and other expenses.

RTMark, which is in no way associated with etoy, aims to publicize the widespread corporate abuse of democratic institutions like courts and elections. To this end it solicits and distributes funding for "sabotage projects." Groups of such projects are called "mutual funds" in order to call attention to one way in which large numbers of people come to identify corporate needs as their own. RTMark projects do not normally target specific companies; the etoy Fund projects are an exception.

ETOYS FINALLY DROPS LAWSUIT, PAYS COURT COSTS
Waited a month to make good on promise, just in time for earnings report

Contact: mailto:etoyfund@rtmark.com
More information: Press cverage, RTMark etoy Projects, etoy Toywar Platform, Shell Oil, Nazi toy

Four weeks ago, Internet toy giant eToys announced to the press that it was "moving away" from its lawsuit against European art group etoy in response to the torrent of public outrage. As the weeks went by without further action, however, many activists decided that eToys' words had represented a typical corporate ploy to derail opposition, and that the company had no intention of actually dropping the suit.

Activists quickly renewed their campaigns against eToys. RTMark initiated two new campaigns to drive eToys' stock price yet further down (it has now sunk well below its opening value of $20 per share, after a high of $67 reached the day the protests began), and a new community platform, http://www.toywar.com, gathered a "toy army" of 1400 activists poised to perform "operations" on command.

The strongest attack to date was scheduled to coincide with eToys' earnings announcement on Thursday. Today, just in time, eToys formally dropped its case against etoy "without prejudice"--a phrase that means either party is still free to attack the other. eToys has also formally agreed to pay etoy's court costs and other expenses incurred as a result of the lawsuit.

"A precedent has now finally been set in stone," said RTMark spokesperson Ray Thomas. "eToys thought it could act like corporations typically do, but it had no idea how the Internet works. Now e-commerce corporations have a choice: either obtain a legal stranglehold on the Internet, so that this kind of defensive reaction is no longer possible, or behave decently towards the humans who use this medium for purposes other than profit."

"This is the Brent Spar of e-commerce," said Reinhold Grether, an Internet researcher and a mastermind of the anti-eToys campaigns. "Just as the petroleum industry learned it had to listen to environmentalists, so e-commerce companies have now learned that the Internet doesn't belong to them, and they can't do whatever they want with it." (See http://rtmark.com/shell for more about the Brent Spar, and http://www.hygrid.de/etoyrhiz.html for more comments by Grether.)

"eToys will try to paint this as a misunderstanding, as just a simple error that has now been corrected," wrote etoy in a prepared statement. "But this is not what happened. They tried to destroy us, and that got them into very big trouble. They wanted to drop their case 'with prejudice,' because they fear further attacks and trademark battles, but now they see they have no choice at all in the matter. It is a total victory."

WHAT NOW?

Even though etoy has recovered its domain, the etoy Fund will not be retired, said RTMark spokesperson Thomas. Each project's discussion board will continue to function, and the resources of the etoy Fund pages will continue to be accessible for use and research.

"We hope that this campaign continues to serve as a reminder to people of what corporations do when left to their own devices, and as a reminder to corporations of what they cannot do, at least on the Internet," said Thomas. "We also hope people continue expressing their anger at eToys, if they so choose. There are many ways to embarrass and further damage this company--the Nazi figurine eToys advertises could lead to a boycott by Jewish groups, for example." Another immediate option would be a class-action lawsuit by eToys investors, said lawyer and RTMark member Rita Mae Rakoczi. "It could convincingly be argued that eToys, being an Internet company, should have known what it was getting into, and has seriously mismanaged its stockholders' money. If etoy's possession of etoy.com is so dangerous-- as perhaps it really is--why didn't eToys choose a different name for the company when they had the chance? And why did they choose to pursue in an openly hostile manner an art group best known for a piece called the 'Digital Hijack,' which made sophisticated use of technology to playfully attack users' browsers? It wouldn't take an Einstein to predict trouble."

"If eToys stumbled into this through sheer stupidity and negligence," Rakoczi continued, "it could be liable to investors for part of the $4 billion in value that's been lost as a consequence. A successful lawsuit could even entail eToys losing its own trademark, which would likely mean the end of the company." RTMark has set up a page containing links to resources on class action lawsuits against corporate managements.

"Things on the Internet don't go away," said etoy in its statement. "'Brick and mortar' corporations do this sort of thing and then bury it--but this will always be there when you search for information on eToys. It will always be very visible what bastards they were. They can never recover from this." The 1400 "Toywar soldiers" mustered by http://www.toywar.com will remain on high alert, according to the platform's operators, and are prepared to spring into action at the slightest indication of further aggression by eToys.

"And Network Solutions had better be careful, too," etoy said. "We will not tolerate any delay in the reinstallation of the etoy.com DNS entries." Network Solutions, the company in charge of Internet domains, illegally terminated etoy's e-mail shortly after the November 29 injunction, although no such move was required by the order. (See http://rtmark.com/etoyvaticano.html for another example of illegal behavior by Network Solutions.)

BACKGROUND AND TIMELINE

Late last year, eToys attempted to buy etoy.com from European art group etoy, and offered upwards of $500,000 in cash and stock options for the domain. etoy turned down the offer, so on November 29, 1999, eToys obtained a court injunction preventing etoy from operating a website at www.etoy.com, which had been registered before eToys even existed. To obtain the injunction eToys told the judge that etoy.com was confusing customers, and furthermore that it contained pornography and calls to violence. etoy.com had never made any reference to eToys or toys, nor featured anything resembling pornography or calls to violence.

During the subsequent weeks, activists attacked eToys by a variety of means that have been widely credited with contributing to the 70% decline in the value of eToys stock--a decline that began the same day as the protests.

The Dec. 15-25 Virtual Sit-in crippled the eToys servers, as CNN reported, and prompted eToys to file a restraining order against one of the organizations responsible for it, and to threaten another activist anonymously.

Simultaneously, the Disinvest! campaign filled eToys investment boards and other outlets with messages about the situation. Many investors responded by dumping their eToys stock. Even those who refused to see a link between activist attacks and the eToys stock fall were at a loss to explain how it could lose so much money, so consistently, on consistently good financial news. Some suspected foul play by eToys management, and the possibility of a class-action lawsuit was raised.

Finally, on December 29, eToys announced it was "moving away" from its lawsuit in response to public outrage. At first, etoy and the activists were delighted, and a formal counterpart to the statement was expected from hour to hour. Then, when nothing happened for days and then weeks, it became clear that eToys' announcement had been an empty verbal concession it had no intention of making concrete--a typical corporate ploy to derail activist momentum.

Activists quickly renewed their campaign to damage eToys. Perhaps startled by the endurance of its opponents, and nervous about further attacks and proof of instability during the week it is to announce its quarterly earnings, eToys today--at 15:20 Pacific Standard Time, to be exact--finally backed down on paper, ceding full rights to etoy.com on etoy's terms, without precondition and with payment of court costs and other expenses.

RTMark, which is in no way associated with etoy, aims to publicize the widespread corporate abuse of democratic institutions like courts and elections. To this end it solicits and distributes funding for "sabotage projects." Groups of such projects are called "mutual funds" in order to call attention to one way in which large numbers of people come to identify corporate needs as their own. RTMark projects do not normally target specific companies; the etoy Fund projects are an exception.

By far, the greatest invention of all time.

And for all you dufae who complain about the inclusion of the electric hand dryer over the plow, lightbulb, internal combustion engine, or transcapacator...

...Anyone who takes this article (or this reply, for that matter) seriously, deserves to. :)
--

Although etoy.com should not have to do this, if they want to, they could. It might pacify the scum-sucking corporate fascists at etoys.com. Etoy could put up a main page, so that when you hit their site for the first time, a very plain and unassuming page pops up and says:

Then you just click on whichever one it is you want.

The porn site "beefcake.com" ("Adult Entertainment") and the Southpark site "beef-cake.com" ("Southpark Archives!") shared similiar URLs this way quite effectively, and I doubt many kids bothered to click on the "Adult Site" link when their favorite SP characters that they wanted to see were only a click away in the other direction.

Of course, the profit mongering, IPO-lusting control freaks at Etoys might still not be happy with this, although I think it pretty much defines "good faith effort". If that's the case, fuck 'em. Etoy has a very strong case in court and can sue the living shit out of Etoys for their stupid, bullying tactics.

-Ben

You can send your thoughts to etoys here .

Etoys has anatomically correct dolls! What are they teaching our children!

[Just a quote from the article:] ...they claim that "the antisocial, obscene, and offensive images associated with defendants' use of the mark 'etoy,' both on the Internet and elsewhere, have tarnished the ETOYS® mark and the eToys brand name..." A company, that sells "action figures" named GI Joe, plastic soldiers and uniforms from the German Wehrmacht, points with its finger onto cyber-artists and says "antisocial and offensive"?! This is obscene!!! Toys really suitable for kids

Happy hunting!

Write to eToys "Uncle of the Board" Toby Lenk. For more information, go to the etoy ODP catgeory.

[hit them where it hurts: don't buy their stock.] here is what i sent them via the feedback page :

i am very disappointed and dissatisfied with eToys for being the first large corporation that directly threatens artists (etoy.com) with a laughable but nevertheless expensive lawsuit.
your lawyers are very good - TOO BAD YOU CAN'T SUE CUSTOMERS TO SHOP AT YOUR SITE. customers can simply choose to go elsewhere.
so here is what i will do:
1) i will never shop at eToys
2) i will send email to all my friends to do the same.
3) i will not buy your stock.

we all know the facts:
etoy.com has been around long before eToys ever started.
etoy.com has refused your offer for big money.
eToys has no right whatsoever to shut down etoy.com.

the fight has just begun. and we all know that controversy is bad for business. so... give it up. call back the dobermanns. be nice.

This page is etoys.com's feedback page. I just typed in a short note and sent it in. The usual stiff note to a company I'll boycott. My theory is short, blunt, but polite.

Link to send them comments.

I have to laugh at all the perverts who end up at my site after doing a search for the Mitchell Brothers' adult theatre. (I mention them on my page because of the great (G-rated) murals on the outside of their building.)

What if all the gazillions of Slashdot readers went to the eToys web site but didn't buy anything? If their webmaster checked the logs, he/she would see tons of hits, all originating from this story. Presumably they would check out the story and think "Omigod, look at all these people that aren't buying anything, and it's because we screwed eToy!"

Normally, they might just think, "Oh, the only people that will really care about eToy are a handfull of geeks, so we can go harass eToy," but if they see how many people really do read Slashdot, they might just change their minds.

Just a thought. In any case, I'm going to slide on over and not buy anything. (Funny thing is, I was going to buy some toys for my niece from them, until now.)

I just browsed through the etoys site and found a contacts page with email addresses.

I would suggest that we all contact investor relations and politely explain our displeasure. You may wish to point out to them that they are not only wrong, but they are also throwing away potentially very lucrative business from computer-savy young professionals. I think this is just the kind of things investors would want to know about; we should let them know.

I just browsed through the etoys site and found a contacts page with email addresses.

I would suggest that we all contact investor relations and politely explain our displeasure. You may wish to point out to them that they are not only wrong, but they are also throwing away potentially very lucrative business from computer-savy young professionals. I think this is just the kind of things investors would want to know about; we should let them know.

I just browsed through the etoys site and found a contacts page with email addresses.

I would suggest that we all contact investor relations and politely explain our displeasure. You may wish to point out to them that they are not only wrong, but they are also throwing away potentially very lucrative business from computer-savy young professionals. I think this is just the kind of things investors would want to know about; we should let them know.

Well, here is some of the contact info I could find for etoys.com.
Customer Service: service@etoys.com, 1-800-463-8697 (US), 1-888-983-8697 (CA), 310-664-8530 (Other)
Feedback page: http://www.e toys.com/cgi-bin/cs_print_page.cgi?menupage=1&page name=t10
Here is the info obtained from whois:
Registrant:
etoys (ETOYS3-DOM)
3100 Ocean Park Blvd., Suite 300
Santa Monica, CA 90405
US

Domain Name: ETOYS.COM

Administrative Contact:
Admin, eToys (AE247-ORG) admin@ETOYS.COM
(310) 664-8100
Fax- - (310) 664-8101

Technical Contact, Zone Contact:
eToys HostMaster (EH139-ORG) hostmaster@ETOYS.COM
+1 310 664 8100
Fax- +1 310 664 8101

Billing Contact:
Admin, eToys (AE247-ORG) admin@ETOYS.COM
(310) 664-8100
Fax- - (310) 664-8101

Record last updated on 12-Jul-1999.
Record created on 03-Nov-1997.
Database last updated on 2-Dec-1999
12:28:08 EST.
Domain servers in listed order:

NAME.ROC.FRONTIERNET.NET 209.130.187.10
NAME.PHX.FRONTIERNET.NET 206.165.6.10
NS1.IDEALAB.COM 209.143.242.142
NS2.IDEALAB.COM 207.213.50.30

Just remember folks, if you decide to contact anyone listed, Be Polite and Professional!
We don't need another Slashdot Effect Gone Wrong

-BH

https://www.e toys.com/cgi-bin/cs_print_page.cgi?menupage=1&page name=t10

Here are two pages at which you can leave etoys.com feedback: http://www.etoys.com/cgi-bin/cs_print_page.cgi?men upage=1&pagename=t9 http://www.etoys.com/cgi-bin/cs_print_page.cgi?men upage=1&pagename=t10 The first link is to "report a problem with the site", and the second is to "send feedback." I'd say this qualifies as both.

Here are two pages at which you can leave etoys.com feedback: http://www.etoys.com/cgi-bin/cs_print_page.cgi?men upage=1&pagename=t9 http://www.etoys.com/cgi-bin/cs_print_page.cgi?men upage=1&pagename=t10 The first link is to "report a problem with the site", and the second is to "send feedback." I'd say this qualifies as both.

• http://www.etoys.com/cgi-bin/cs_print_page.cgi?men upage=1&pagename=t9
• http://www.etoys.com/cgi-bin/cs_print_page.cgi?men upage=1&pagename=t10

• http://www.etoys.com/cgi-bin/cs_print_page.cgi?men upage=1&pagename=t9
• http://www.etoys.com/cgi-bin/cs_print_page.cgi?men upage=1&pagename=t10

Click here to go the Contact us page for their website. While a message may not go directly to someone in charge of the company, it might get circulated around. Don't we, as consumers, have a right to voice our opinion to the company? Here is a good way to picket the company without leaving the comfort of our homes. If enough of us contact the website, we might be able to do some good. Consumers, unite!!!

Here's a link for contact information at Etoys.com.
I'm sure that some people will use this properly, and some will not, but I'm not the babysitter, just the messenger. I plan to get a hold of them and tell them that I refuse to buy anything else from them until they stop this nonsense.

The eToys contact page is at http://www.etoys.com/html/about_i nformation.shtml They've got a service address (service@etoys.com), a VP of communications (kross@etoys.com), a Director of Investor Relations (ir@etoys.com) and the most likely addressee:
Jonathan Cutler, PR Manager (jcutler@etoys.com)

Then go to http://www.toysrus.com to see a huge, balanced cluster of top of the line NT boxes in a real world situation.

We all know what the result will be, but it's fun anyway.

Foamy

How about E-Toys?

It was recently reported on the lego-robotics list that the Mindstorms set is available at eToys for around 200 bucks.