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Is It OK To Sucks?
I have a problem with the whole notion of taking domains away to begin with. The only tune that corporate, capitalist American can sing is "the free market" -- except when it comes to the free market in domain names.
Real estate speculation? Great, it optimizes efficiency. Currency market speculation? Balances resources internationally and assures prosperity. But domain name speculation? You filthy cybersquatter!
Personally I could see this being useful in 1995, when companies were just waking up to the internet, but I think it's run its course. Any company in 2001 that hasn't registered its corporate name, and all its major products' names before making them public, is stupid and deserves to pay large sums of money to savvy entrepreneurs. In 2001, we're just seeing natural selection running its course. Bailing out stupidity is corporate welfare.
Anyway, the big picture is that the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), in adjudicating the Uniform Domain-Name Dispute-Resolution Protocol (UDRP), is trying to find a way to apply trademark law to the internet. The rules put in place ensured that there was to be no free market on "LockheedMartin.com" -- the company that owns the trademark on "LOCKHEED MARTIN" gets it, and others are only allowed to have it if they are doing something appropriate with it (not using it in "bad faith," to be precise).
WIPO makes its decisions based on the UDRP, but has a wide latitude in interpreting it. This is one of its problems, of course. The UDRP has a handful of fuzzy two-word clauses like "bad faith" and "legitimate interests"; WIPO's panelists can interpret them almost any way they want. Consistency is a prerequisite of justice, and randomly-administered justice is no justice at all.
But Monday, the two fuzzy words were "confusingly similar," namely, whether LockheedMartinSucks.com is confusingly similar to LockheedMartin.com. The decisions came down, and they may be the most startling display of WIPO's arbitrary arbitration.
As the decision states, Lockheed-Martin "relie[d] primarily on previous ICANN decisions that have found domain names that combine a trademark with the word 'sucks' to be confusingly similar to the trademark."
Lockheed probably thought it was on safe ground by doing so. The list of domains taken away for that reason was long: guinness-sucks.com, guinness-really-sucks.com, etc., wal-martsucks.com, cabelassucks.com, directlinesucks.com, dixonssucks.com, freeservesucks.com, natwestsucks.com, standardcharteredsucks.com, and wal-martcanadasucks.com, etc.
But Monday's decision, for once, told the truth:
"The disputed domain names are neither identical nor confusingly similar to Complainant's trademarks, since no one would reasonably believe that Complainant operates a website that appends the word 'sucks' to its name and then uses it to criticize corporate America."
What took Captain Obvious so long to arrive?
The decision also notes that in the WalmartCanadaSucks.com decision, the only other case where the trademark-holder was told to take a hike, the sole panelist "expressed skepticism" about the confusing similarity of sucks, "but stopped just short of advocating a per se privilege exempting all 'sucks' domain names."
Likewise here; they make it clear that "no one could reasonably believe" sucks is confusing. And more interestingly -- they do not bother even to consider the other two parts of the three-part test. As soon as they decided that LockheedSucks was not Lockheed, that was it, the case was over.
But, unfortunately, I don't see any language that encourages future panelists to reach the same decision. This is an international body and they don't have to follow the almost-uniquely-American tradition of following precedent and being, you know, predictable. The next ten sucks sites might be taken away, for all anyone can tell. Or they might not. Sucks-sters will just have to hope they get the right panelist.
There were some good lines in this decision, by the way, that tell me that the panelists know what's what. "A website that functions for the exercise of free speech by its nature can not operate with bad faith intent." I like that. Kudos to panelists Foster and Sorkin.
And shame on panelist Wagoner, who was the dissenting voice.
Wagoner was embarrassingly honest in his outrage that the UDRP was being followed, for once. The implication of the majority decision, he complained, is that "the lack of 'confusing similarity' would prevent a finding that the Policy had been violated."
Well, yes: that's exactly how the Policy demands that WIPO rule. When your personal beliefs about what the UDRP should say, Mr. Wagoner, differ from what it actually does say, we'd hope you can figure out which to follow.
And among his reasons why "sucks" should be swallowed up by corporate America is that consumer eyeballs belong to corporate America. If you the consumer do a search for Lockheed, happen to notice that someone is criticizing it at a sucks domain, and then of your own free will and volition decide you want to click and see what the criticism is all about, your reckless websurfing has made you party to a filching of Lockheed's intellectual property:
"...it is likely (given the relative ease by which websites can be entered) that such users will choose to visit the sites, if only to satisfy their curiosity. Respondent will have accomplished his objective of diverting potential customers of Complainant to his websites by the use of domain names that are similar to Complainant's trademark."
The other two panelists smacked down that insipid argument explicitly, too, by the way, saying that once the searcher sees the sucks and nonsucks alternatives, he or she will exhibit a discernment and intelligence measurably higher than the average garden slug.
Someone needs to ask WIPO: what the hell is going on?
Trademark law (in the United States at least) exists for the citizen's protection, not the corporation's. The laws against dilution of trademarks exist so that you and I will not be confused. When the law, or in this case the arbitration rules, start to protect corporations' trademark interests over ours, something has gone wrong.
And domain names are the real estate of the internet. Obviously a sucks domain name is parody, and will not be confused with its target -- obviously. People who would criticize corporations have enough problems to worry about already with libel suits they can't afford to defend (win or lose). The last thing they need is a governing body that can take away their website on absurd charges of trademark violation.
And the second-to-last thing they need is a governing body that can't make up its damn mind.
The Guinness case should have been tossed out without ever bothering the domain owner. The case was ridiculous. If guinness wanted the domain they should have bought it. If not, then they should have just left it alone.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
If anything, we need a way to challenge WIPO rulings; as such, they are considered final and thus one cannot appeal them. Or even better, reinstate the initial policy: first come, first served, whiners can show their own way to the door.
"Pinky, you've left the lens cap of your mind on again." - P&TB
"I can see my house from here!" - ST:
www.WIPOsux0rs.com
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum viditur.
I only post comments when someone on the internet is wrong.
And how about the Supreme Court? You didn't vote for any of them. Nor the Secretary of State. Nor the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Nor the Attorney General. Not any federal judge. Not the head of the FDA. None of those are elected positions.
It's exactly the same deal. You may not have directly elected the rulers of WIPO but you DID vote for the people who voted to join WIPO and agreed to its rules and regulations. And if you don't like it you can vote other people in to have us leave.
you also probably meant to write '#undef', too. :P
</pedantic>
"If ignorance is bliss, may I never be happy.
-- Veni, vidi, dormivi
As others have pointed out, it's already registered, but "wiporeallysucks.com" isn't. Nor is "wipo-really-sucks.com", "guinessreallysucks.com", or "guiness-really-sucks.com." It's probably a safe bet that Wal-Mart, Lockheed-Martin, etc. haven't registered all the permutations of mixing their name and the word "sucks" in with various adjectives and/or body parts/other disgusting items. Hell, you can probably get "wiposucksthegoatsexman.com."
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"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
I always thought that large disclaimers would do the trick.
If I ran a site (Xsucks.com) and put a large disclaimer at the top, saying something on the lines of "This site is not affiliated with X, please visit X.com if you wish to see the real site", then any argument that the site would be confused with the real thing would surely fall over, as long as your disclaimer wouldn't be missed (after all, "read this before installing" type agreements have been enforced before, so a "read this before viewing the webpage" would certainly hold water).
Likewise, I've always thought that companies with like names, but totally different businesses, should offer links to each other's sites. If you remember Prince vs Prince, where a British computer consultancy was sued by the American sportswear manufacturer for Prince.com (and you can see who won by visiting). The current prince.com would not lose any business by pointing visitors to the site they might really be wanting.
I think I'm just saying, "be nice".
wipo.reallyfuckingsucks.net
Ooops.
That should read
wipo.really.fuckingsucks.net
There used to be more, but Laurence Godfrey got pissed at my site and threatened to sue, call the FBI, etc.
Well the FBI called, and I was forced by them to take down half of the content.
Append the url with old_index.php3 and you can see the origial content. I submitted the story to Slashdot under YRO but it was rejected as usual. I have a very funny log of emails from Prof. G.
[root@ranger /proc]# whois wiposucks.com [whois.crsnic.net]
.com, .net, and .org domains can now be registered
.COM, .NET, .ORG, .EDU domains and
Whois Server Version 1.3
Domain names in the
with many different competing registrars. Go to http://www.internic.net
for detailed information.
Domain Name: WIPOSUCKS.COM
Registrar: NETWORK SOLUTIONS, INC.
Whois Server: whois.networksolutions.com
Referral URL: www.networksolutions.com
Name Server: GATE.TELLURIAN.NET
Name Server: NS1.INFOLOOK.COM
Updated Date: 05-aug-1999
>>> Last update of whois database: Wed, 7 Feb 2001 11:19:21 EST
The Registry database contains ONLY
Registrars.
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
In my opinion, the biggest contrast that I see between this decision and the decision regarding guinness-sucks.com is that in this case, the person holding the potentially infringing domain name actually responded to the WIPO panel and the Complainants contentions. Unfortunately, I don't see much chance of winning a dispute if one doesn't respond to it.
How did this troll get published, anyway?
Best Slashdot Co
"...it is likely (given the relative ease by which websites can be entered) that such users will choose to visit the sites, if only to satisfy their curiosity. Respondent will have accomplished his objective of diverting potential customers of Complainant to his websites by the use of domain names that are similar to Complainant's trademark."
I can accomplish the same thing by registering www.pinkelephants.com and sprinkling the HTML with the phrase "Lockheed Martin Sucks!". Search engines do not search only URL's. THey'd be pretty damn useless if that were the case.
Mmmm... unelected, unaccountable UN bureaucracies are exactly what I want running my life. Not. Why are we part of the UN again?
- - - - -
Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
Like I said, why are we a part of it again? :)
- - - - -
Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
First, it generally takes adding the word "sucks" before the dot com to get to the offending web page in question, so the odds of accidentally coming across it are slim.
Second, your over-generalization is disgusting. May as well say that "only the mentally retarded use Windows". - forgetting about and offending the millions of people that use the OS of Doom to play video games [does Linux have Halflife or Baldur's Gate?], office work and so forth. People who drink Guiness, unlike people who use M$ products, are usually doing so for a reason. These are mine:
Yeungling sucks ass in any flavor. It fills the gap between real beer and the beer you see on TV. Guiness is opaque and thick. It's like bread, only better. The taste is decent, and the availability over a comparable beer [Murphy's] is much greater in Pittsburgh- and Guiness is *cheaper* here. It's one of the few beers I can actually finish without feeling sick- I drink it because I like it, not because I'm an Irish fanatic [I'm not- I'm of German decent], or to piss of my friends [when I want to do that, I drink Zima], and the fact that it could be supporting the IRA is a point in its favor.
In any case, what about Primus' website? www.primussucks.com ? It's the official band site, which makes it pretty flack-proof, and a good case in favor of how stupid legal maneuvers like this really are.
Unfortunately, microsoftsucks.com *would* be "confusingly similar"...
A dingo ate my sig...
As has been proven time and time again, baseball free-agency being a good example, no matter how consistent or inconsistent your system is, it is still subject to revocation through the lengthy court process.
Eventually, there probably will be a ban on 'sucks' domains (because of corporate-funded decision-makers) or there will not be (because the free-speech issue is held to be prominent). And if some bodies don't like it, perhaps there will be country-specific '.sucks' registrars...
Carefree highway, let me slip away on you.
What will be interesting is, given a company FOO, if Register.com receives money by selling the domain foosucks.com, are they acting in bad faith? Probably not, given they are an objective, flat-fee service, neither judging nor upcharging particular domain names based on the commercial desirability thereof. But if enough companies threaten and pressure them, and force them into legal expenditures, they just might cave and start filtering against *sucks" and so forth, just to stay unharassed.
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This is not my sandwich.
ICQ does the same thing. You cannot set your email address associated with your ICQ account to anything that has "icq" in it. It fails silently. I usually give out email addresses that reflect the source in them and it took me a long time to figure out why ICQ was not letting me set my email address.
So, why doesn't somebody create a .sucks.[something] second level domain (e.g sucks.cx or something), and then allow the myriad $(foo)sucks.com wannabes registers $(foo).sucks.cx
sucks.com is unfortunately already registered, but...
www.eFax.com are spammers
Companies use trademarks to defend thier interests. Saying trademarks are for the citizens protection is a little like saying patents are consumer protection. Even if the laws are written such that trademark law is as above, that is certainly *not* the case in the real world. Trademarks protect identity, product names and differentiate companies and they are viciously defended to increase revenue. They don't give a hoot about citizen protection as long as the citizens are shopping with them.
-Moondog
I'm wondering... if the guy with the .sucks.com domain started selling names like microsoft.sucks.com and apple.sucks.com, could the WIPO do anything about it?
Just curious.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
My understanding is that basically it's a UN deal and works like the UN. Members are appointed to a panel who votes. I'm assuming the Super-7 or whatever they're called control the majority of what goes on in WIPO.
Mordred
That's why I registered trulysucks.net. I can run my Warner Brothers sucks site as warnerbrothers.trulysucks.net and there's nothing ICANN or the WIPO can do about it, since the "trademark" bit is in the third-level (and their policies only apply to the second-level domain, not what you put in it).
Anyone who wants to slag off a trademark holder is welcome to a DNS delegation in the domain (just send me an email); it's not a commercial thing at all.
-robin
"A Guinness buyer is usually an impluse buyer, who buys this overpriced luxury beer to be perceived as a snob, an Irish fanatic or to piss off his friends. "
Hang on a mo, this might be true in America, but Guinness isn't aimed at America. It's neither overpriced or a luxury in Britain/Ireland where most of the sales are, it's just an everyday pub drink.
Over here, Mexican Sol and American Budweiser (not the proper Czech stuff) fall into the category of "overpriced luxury beer", but I'm not xenophobic enough to believe that applies eveywhere.
A pizza of radius z and thickness a has a volume of pi z z a
Honestly, I have not seen few situations in which a domain name holder should have one. The reason the WIPO rules this way is because the domain name holder is almost ALWAYS a cybersquatter--someone just holding the domain name so they can sell it at an absurd rate. The problem is that /. proclaims headlines like GUINESS TAKES AWAY GUINESSSUCKS.COM, ETC FROM INDIVIDUAL and no one here bothers to read the fine print that the domain holder did not even bother to challenge the complain.
People should have a forum for disputing issues. If the disputes are not refuted, then the dispute is won.
No, it is not. That's why Lockheed lost its complaint. But the guinesssucks site was not a site for complaining about guiness. It was purchased by someone for the sole purpose of selling it to guiness at a higher rate. That is cybersquatting.
READ THE FUCKING DECISIONS!!!!!!!!
In the Guiness case, the Responded was someone blatently trying to make money off of selling the domains to Guiness! HE DID NOT EVEN BOTHER TO FILE A RESPONSE!!!!!!!!!!
In the Lockheed-Martin case, there was a very well-reasoned response and the decision on the part of the WIPO itself was very well written and very well reasoned.
Different situations, different results.
If you just give up, you lose. If you fought, you probably could have won very easily.
Fight Spammers!
You say that 80% of the disputes are ruled in favor of the trademark holder. But, what percentage of that are defendants that never respond?
Fight Spammers!
A trademark is to properly identify a company, product, or service.
If you use Xsucks.com, where X is a trademark, you are properly identifying what sucks. If you have mattelsucks.com, you are properly identifying the trademark Mattel, a company identification mark, sucks. It can also come under fair use.
Now under the anti-SLAPP statutes available in many states, the case can dismissed fairly quickly. Also, it has been ruled that trademark cannot be used to silence critism or commentary. See Mattel v. MCA. (the Barbiegirl case).
Fight Spammers!
Amazing! I had never thought about it, about this *sucks.com, but just after reading this article I started trying:
www.boeingsucks.com
www.airbussucks.com
www.intelsucks.com
www.amdsucks.com
www.microsoftsucks.com
All of them are registered, altought none of the above have any content at all.
I was happy to see that even a www.linuxsucks.com exists!
Disclaimer to the moderators: I am not saying that Linux sucks, I like Linux, only that I am happy to see that a linuxsucks.com exists because it means that to someone it is important enough to start battling against it; I hope you get my point.
slashdotsucks.tv
myslashdotsucks.org
e-slashdotsucks.org
aboutslashdotsucks.org
slashdotsucksonline.org
slashdotsuckscentral.org
Bugger off, Richard.
No, Thursday's out. How about never - is never good for you?
Citizens in the United States have freedom of speech, religion, and press only if it complies with the following subclauses:
There are 456,326,563,743,445 subclauses, do you want me to list them all?
Seriously, though... How can you truely tell me that these WIPO rules aren't a direct violation of the first amendment??
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Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
WIPOsucks.com, and see how they react to it...
I think this is more likely so that stupid people don't get email from "hotmail_support@hotmail.com" saying "Please send us your password, we need to fix our database," rather than from any motive of squashing your right to say that they suck.
#define tongue_in_cheek
There goes my plan for my vacuum cleaner promotional fansites:
http://-really-sucks.net
#udefine tongue_in_cheek
I donate all spillover Karma to the charity of my choice... Ada was still a babe despite what people may say...
If these parody sites were just a little more creative, they wouldn't need to deal with this kind of BS. Check out indenture.ac (formerly known as bigtimeconsulting.com) for a great example.
std::disclaimer<std::legalese> sig=new std::disclaimer; sig->dump(); delete sig;
Web proxy, here I come!
-------
We want some answers and all that we get
Some kind of shit about a terrorist threat
- Ministry
Once again, the morons over at butt-WIPO never cease to amaze me. At least they won't confuse my favorite Verizon sucks site with Verizon themselves.
"Ancillary does not mean you get to rule the world." --U.S. Circuit Judge Harry Edwards, speaking to the FCC's lawyer
"Homo sum: humani nil a me alienum puto"
(I am a man: nothing human is alien to me)
My only political goal is to see to it that no political party achieves its goals.
Major Premise: ICANN is incorporated in the United States and as such its decisions are to U.S. law
.com, .org, and .net are subject to U.S. law.
Minor Premise: The UDRP is an ICANN-issued policy.
Conclusion: The UDRP is subject to U.S. law
Major Premise: The Network Solutions root DNS servers are in the U.S.
Minor Premise: Items within the U.S. are subject to U.S. law.
Conclusion: The current DNS root servers for
Now, if you want to build overseas root servers to replace the NSI ones, fine. Nobody's stopping you (although you might ask AlterNIC about your odds of getting people to use your servers). In the meantime, the U.S. Supreme Court has final jurisdiction over the core DNS root servers in operation today.
There's no "we" in team, only "me"
The reason that WIPO is the center of all these cases and the root of so much bad fortune is that they are blatantly unfair to individuals. WIPO rules against domain name defendants 80% of the time. This makes it an easy for any company or corporation with a domain dispute to take it to WIPO with the expecation of getting any and everything they ask for. This is not nearly such a problem with the other domain arbitrator organizations
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
I thought LockheedMartinsucks.com was their division that created the intake for their jet engines. If ever I would have agreed with WIPO . . . :)
This may only be slightly related to the trademark protection story, so feel free to moderate me off-topic. :-)
:-) ). They have even made any variation of "hotmail" a reserved or ineligible word that you cannot use in your account's personal information, so you can't have it appear on your outgoing messages. Their terms of use say you can't use their services in an attempt to be defamatory etc.
/. Considering email usernames constitute a large part of people's identities on the net, why shouldn't we be able to use any username we please so long as it's not already in use? I've heard all the arguments for potential abuse (I work for a webmail provider) but I'm still not convinced.
I encountered a similar situation to the "sucks" domains, when trying to get a Hotmail account username. (Yes, Hotmail/MSN is evil, but this was years ago when I was a newbie). After trying a bunch of usernames and finding them all taken, I started to express my ire and frustration by trying variations of "hotmailsucks". They had taken steps to protect their trademarked name against such usage, by not allowing any username to have the word "Hotmail" in it. Pretty smart on their part I suppose, since I couldn't have my "hotmail_sucks_ass" username. (I eventually had to drop the hotmail to end up with a lovely email address that I was embarrassed to share with my relatives.
I guess my point is that email providers have been blocking their trademarks from use for years, and some even block potentially offensive words altogether. I wouldn't have even gotten "sucks" past some webmail providers. No one seems to have gotten upset over intellectual freedom in these cases, at least not enough to post a story on
What do other slashdotters think?
Jetgirl
To paraphrase Hitler talking about the Pope
"Just how many root DNS server's does the US Supreme Court have?"
And I suppose the US Supreme Court is going to tell root DNS servers hosted overseas how to run them? Maybe in your USian-centric wet dream.
I can see why the two decisions are obviously different; your average Guinness buyer is a very different sort than your average LockheedMArtin buyer.
A Guinness buyer is usually an impluse buyer, who buys this overpriced luxury beer to be perceived as a snob, an Irish fanatic or to piss off his friends. Really, there are many other, better, cheaper stouts out there, if you don't want to make your own. Might I suggest Youngling, or even Murphys (and when you buy Murphy's you're not supporting the IRA).
A LockheedMartin uyer is usually acting as an agent of government, with millions to spend on expensive airplanes, and they won't be swayed by a false web page, unlike the drunken sot of a Guinness buyer.
Pretty simple, when you think about it.
This outcome isn't necessarily breaking with the tradition of WIPO. In the case of Guinness it is stated that: "The Panel does not infer that "-sucks" domain names are immune from scrutiny as being confusingly similar to trademarks to which they are appended. Each case must be considered in light of the facts presented. "
In the Guinness case, the Respondent never responded, and was so unable to present facts affecting the outcome of the decision. Time and again, the panel says, "In the absence of a Response..."
In the Wal-Mart case, again the Respondent never Responed. And he also was attempting to sell the domain name, which constitutes bad faith. This is not the case in the Lockheed decision.
In the Lockheed decision, the Respondent responded in a timely manner and argued in a well-thought out manner.
It's nice to see some people still listen to logic.