2600 Magazine Defeats Ford

narftrek cut-and-pastes the text from 2600's announcement that Ford has conceded the case they brought against 2600 over a certain domain. Our earlier story has some background. A Volvo repair shop near me is named "Island Vo Vo"; the L is silent, you see, because Ford really sucks.

Comments

Post Article?

[MikeOttawa]

Can someone post the article for me? My firewall blocks the 2600 domain (go figure, eh?)

Re:Post Article?

[Mr Guy]

font SIZE="3" COLOR="#CCCCCC" FACE="helvetica"> FORD DROPS APPEAL - 2600 VICTORY AFFIRMED
Posted 28 Jun 2002 05:40:29 UTC

Ford Motor Company has officially and unconditionally conceded its complete, utter, and perpetual loss on the merits of the FORD v. 2600 "FuckGeneralMotors.com" case. Ford has dismissed its appeal to the Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, meaning that Ford has completely given up all attempts to reverse the victory that 2600 Enterprises won on December 20, 2001. The mutually agreed dismissal papers were officially entered by the Sixth Circuit on June 27, 2002.

In the words of another FORD from Michigan -- former President Gerald Ford, "Our long national nightmare is over."

2600, which has given up nothing other than an extremely improbable claim for getting its attorneys' fees back from FORD, has expressly reserved the right to point "FuckGeneralMotors.com" anyplace whatsoever that 2600 pleases -- including at the FORD homepage -- at any time whatsoever, with or without notice.

Of course, the plan in March, 2001, when the lawsuit arose, was to point the address someplace more suitable than the FORD homepage, probably as soon as mid-April or early May, 2001. In other words, the lawsuit has actually delayed 2600's prior plans (several other domain names that were part of the same project have been re-pointed several times, while FuckGeneralMotors.com has remained pointed at FORD). Now that the lawsuit has been won, 2600 will be soliciting suggestions during the H2K2 conference, for the best place to point the Domain Name. Ultimately, this just proves how silly and counterproductive FORD's litigation strategy always has been from the beginning.

In December, 2001, Judge Robert Cleland of the Eastern District of Michigan, dismissed FORD's lawsuit in its entirety for "failure to state a claim upon which relief may be granted" -- which means that even assuming every single allegation in FORD's pleadings to be true (but the allegations weren't all true), FORD still had no legal right whatsoever to prohibit 2600 from pointing FuckGeneralMotors.com at FORD's homepage.

Needless to say, FORD did not like that outcome. Neither did a lot of other intellectual property interests all over the world. Indeed, a google search will reveal a number of PowerPoint(tm) presentations published on the Web (e.g., http://austlii.edu.au/ hkitlaw/resources/Pun_IP.pdf) by various intellectual property lawyers, emphasizing that the decision is being appealed. Well, now it isn't.

The decision stands. It is published at 177 F. Supp. 2d 661. And it is binding precedent. The decision has even been cited by the Sixth Circuit already, in an interim order that was issued in the "TaubmanSucks" case handled by Paul Levy of Public Citizen. http://www.citizen.org/documents/TaubDecision-3-11 -02.pdf .

When FORD filed its appeal to the Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in January, 2002, FORD sought to have the case reinstated so that FORD could take it to trial. 2600 filed a cross-appeal, solely on the issue of whether FORD should be required to reimburse 2600 for its legal bills (such fee awards, in cases under the Lanham Trademark Act, are not especially common and occur only in "exceptional" cases -- so the Sixth Circuit was likely to defer to Judge Cleland's decision to award 2600 its "costs" but not its attorneys' fees). 2600 still gets to take its "costs" back from FORD, and our lawyer is preparing to serve a deposition notice on Bill Ford, to gather the information necessary to garnish FORD's bank accounts, unless FORD cuts us a reimbursement check forthwith.

But the key point is that 2600's victory is permanent and FORD has voluntarily foregone any appeals. The savings, in terms of attorneys' fees, from our standpoint, are enormous.

Re:Post Article?

[Anonymous Coward]

My firewall blocks the 2600 domain (go figure, eh?)

Go figure what, I figure its got some of the best administered boxes in that domain, afraid to catch nimbda from them? Also I have a feeling that if the 2600 boys and girls (yeah right ...girls? :-( ) feel like cracking that they would set up a interesting target themselfs rather then going around the net for vulnarable boxes, and even if they actaully would sink that deep, then they would use compromised systems around the net to hide the origin of the attack.

Also blocking domains? how many reverse lookup does your firewall need to do before letting packets trouch?

Re:Post Article?

[antadam]

for future reference...
2600.com also links to
2600.org, .net, .ca, and a bunch of other country codes to get around things like this (or try typing in the decimal value of the ip)

Re:Post Article?

[zootread]

Unfortunately, I think firewalls are generally setup to block the IP address, rather than the domain name. Though I could be wrong.

Re:Post Article?

[Anonymous Coward]

Thank you for posting that - my own corporate firewall helpfully blocked 2600 as well, to save me from being corrupted against my will. Or something like that - security departments are staffed with idiots after all.

Re:Post Article?

[Anonymous Coward]

At least you have access to most of the net, as my place of employment won't give us access at all. (except for this past Jan-May, when there was a major glitch it took them 5 months to close, heh)

Re:Post Article?

[gomiam]

May I suggest to you both using this workaround?

http://translate.google.com/translate_c?hl=en& u=theURL

It certainly jumps over WebSense(less) at my workplace (and it provides binary data with no hassles, too, so I can see the Dilbert strip quite painlessly.

'til next post

Marcos (any likeness to chance is pure reality)

Sounds familiar

[rob-fu]

They registered this name too a couple of years ago.

There isn't anything there now, but I do remember something being up there at one point.

Re:Sounds familiar

[Anonymous Coward]

As far as I recall fucknbc.com went to CBS and fuckcbs.com went to nbc.com

On a related note 2600 had a two page spread in one issue of Verizon's attempts to avoid this kind of thing by registering every combination of Verizon and any other word they deemed likely for someone to try registering.

editorializing

[Anonymous Coward]

""the L is silent because Ford really sucks"

You know, it's moments like this that make me realize that the vapid, heartless, childish, snide front-page editorializing on slashdot is the only reason i still read this damn site.

keep up the good work, cheers

Re:editorializing

[Anonymous Coward]

No, the L is silent because Ford DOES suck and will sue anyone who uses their trademarked names, even in fair ways (like, using the term Volvo for a Volvo repair shop, or using the term Jaguar in a nature preservation site)

RTFA, it's not editorializing!

Re:editorializing

[WowTIP]

Thank your god that you were Anonymous when you wrote "V***o" on a public website. Otherwise you'd probably have F**d lawyers filling your mailbox with serious-looking-letters.

Maybe they will demand your IP from /. though?

Wonder if they will sue the people behind the Ovlov too? Not that it has anything to do with V***o, but has that stopped them before?

Here's the article

[mwhahaha]

FORD DROPS APPEAL - 2600 VICTORY AFFIRMED
Posted 28 Jun 2002 05:40:29 UTC

Ford Motor Company has officially and unconditionally conceded its complete, utter, and perpetual loss on the merits of the FORD v. 2600 "FuckGeneralMotors.com" case. Ford has dismissed its appeal to the Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, meaning that Ford has completely given up all attempts to reverse the victory that 2600 Enterprises won on December 20, 2001. The mutually agreed dismissal papers were officially entered by the Sixth Circuit on June 27, 2002.

In the words of another FORD from Michigan -- former President Gerald Ford, "Our long national nightmare is over."

2600, which has given up nothing other than an extremely improbable claim for getting its attorneys' fees back from FORD, has expressly reserved the right to point "FuckGeneralMotors.com" anyplace whatsoever that 2600 pleases -- including at the FORD homepage -- at any time whatsoever, with or without notice.

Of course, the plan in March, 2001, when the lawsuit arose, was to point the address someplace more suitable than the FORD homepage, probably as soon as mid-April or early May, 2001. In other words, the lawsuit has actually delayed 2600's prior plans (several other domain names that were part of the same project have been re-pointed several times, while FuckGeneralMotors.com has remained pointed at FORD). Now that the lawsuit has been won, 2600 will be soliciting suggestions during the H2K2 conference, for the best place to point the Domain Name. Ultimately, this just proves how silly and counterproductive FORD's litigation strategy always has been from the beginning.

In December, 2001, Judge Robert Cleland of the Eastern District of Michigan, dismissed FORD's lawsuit in its entirety for "failure to state a claim upon which relief may be granted" -- which means that even assuming every single allegation in FORD's pleadings to be true (but the allegations weren't all true), FORD still had no legal right whatsoever to prohibit 2600 from pointing FuckGeneralMotors.com at FORD's homepage.

Needless to say, FORD did not like that outcome. Neither did a lot of other intellectual property interests all over the world. Indeed, a google search will reveal a number of PowerPoint(tm) presentations published on the Web (e.g., http://austlii.edu.au/ hkitlaw/resources/Pun_IP.pdf) by various intellectual property lawyers, emphasizing that the decision is being appealed. Well, now it isn't.

The decision stands. It is published at 177 F. Supp. 2d 661. And it is binding precedent. The decision has even been cited by the Sixth Circuit already, in an interim order that was issued in the "TaubmanSucks" case handled by Paul Levy of Public Citizen. http://www.citizen.org/documents/TaubDecision-3-11 -02.pdf .

When FORD filed its appeal to the Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in January, 2002, FORD sought to have the case reinstated so that FORD could take it to trial. 2600 filed a cross-appeal, solely on the issue of whether FORD should be required to reimburse 2600 for its legal bills (such fee awards, in cases under the Lanham Trademark Act, are not especially common and occur only in "exceptional" cases -- so the Sixth Circuit was likely to defer to Judge Cleland's decision to award 2600 its "costs" but not its attorneys' fees). 2600 still gets to take its "costs" back from FORD, and our lawyer is preparing to serve a deposition notice on Bill Ford, to gather the information necessary to garnish FORD's bank accounts, unless FORD cuts us a reimbursement check forthwith.

But the key point is that 2600's victory is permanent and FORD has voluntarily foregone any appeals. The savings, in terms of attorneys' fees, from our standpoint, are enormous.

Here's Why

[peterdaly]

Ford sucks. No, really, we mean it. Long and hard. And Ford swallows. Spit. Skeptical? Don't just take our word for it. Just ask the guy who registered fordsucks.com. Or the guy who registered classicvolvo.com and wound up facing a legal battle. (Yes, Volvo is owned by Ford, as is Mazda, Lincoln, Mercury, Jaguar and Aston-Martin.) Or you can ask Wally Rawson, a third-generation seller of replacement parts for Ford cars and trucks. Wally registered 4fordparts.com and 4fordtrucks.com as part of his parts business. Ford sued him. At the same time, Ford sued Hans Rekestad (the guy in Sweden running ClassicVolvo.com). The fordsucks guy was also named in the same lawsuit.

--SNIP--

Ford didn't just sue. Ford asked for $100,000 in damages. Not for all these cases put together - $100,000 per address! And Ford won't just let any of these people give up the names and walk away. Ford won't reimburse them for their registration and renewal costs.

Wally Rawson (the parts guy) didn't want to be bothered with the lawsuit, so he just gave Ford both names. Ford is still suing him. Ford tells him he can't crawl out of the soup until he pays Ford $6000.00 ($3000 per name). The fordsucks guy, evidently, decided it would be cheaper to pay the blackmail than to fight it out in court.

Read More

I thought that page was worth a read.

Re:Here's Why

[Anonymous Coward]

Uh... Mazada isn't owned by Ford. They have joint ownership in one plant in Michigan but Mazda is a Japanese company.

Re:Here's Why

[lucifuge31337]

Ford also has close to 50% ownership of Mazda as a company.

Re:Here's Why

[Latent IT]

Sig Reply: Wow. That's from a C64, right?

Load "$",8,1
LOADING
READY.
list

Re:Here's Why

[MrFredBloggs]

Or commodore pet. Things didnt change fast in Commdores world. Brought out a 500 in 1997. Updated the processor in the 1200 in about 1992. Went bust shortly after. Cant think why!

Re:Here's Why

[Alan Partridge]

POKE 53280,0
BR>That should put a stop to this conversation!

Re:Here's Why

[RadioTV]

That was the same syntax used for the TRS-80s and the Tandy color computers.

Re:Here's Why

[MrFredBloggs]

You`ll have to set the paper colour to black too - i can still see the cursor!

Hell, Ford should be happy with the link!

[Ass-Gas-Istan]

Basically, 2600 is telling users to say "Shove it!" to GM and buy a Ford. It's almost a form of (negative) advertising.

The one who should be angry is General Motors. They're the ones being told to screw off.

Re:Hell, Ford should be happy with the link!

[Peyna]

Why is 2600 saying "Shove it!" to GM, though? I can't figure that part out.

Re:Hell, Ford should be happy with the link!

[Anonymous Coward]

In order to fuck with Ford and GM at the same time. Both companies have a reason to sue and 2600 gets the attention.

Re:Hell, Ford should be happy with the link!

[Clover_Kicker]

> Why is 2600 saying "Shove it!" to GM, though? I
> can't figure that part out.

They registered the domain name with the intention of making a site to bitch about GM.

They didn't have any content yet, so they pointed it to Ford until they got more organized.

Once Ford started legal proceedings, they almost had to keep that address pointing at Ford, anything else would have been seen as backing down.

Re:Hell, Ford should be happy with the link!

[Peyna]

But what were they going to bitch about? Anything in particular? I guess that's what I am curious about. Is it anything significant, or is it just another excuse to bitch?

I would say you could bitch a lot more about Ford, past and present than GM. I shouldn't even have to list those reasons for you (pinto, firestone, etc.) GM is a natural target though, I suppose. When you've produced nearly 1/3rd of the cars on the road in the US you can expect a lot of people to not like you =]

Re:Hell, Ford should be happy with the link!

[Anonymous Coward]

When you've produced nearly 1/3rd of the cars on the road in the US you can expect a lot of people to not like you

That pretty well sums it up. You see, GM employs thousands of talented, intelligent, productive successful people. That upsets many people.

Re:Hell, Ford should be happy with the link!

[Anonymous Coward]

GM also employs many unskilled and skilled labourers.

Re:Hell, Ford should be happy with the link!

[Zeinfeld]

Basically, 2600 is telling users to say "Shove it!" to GM and buy a Ford. It's almost a form of (negative) advertising.

The wonderful thing about 2600 cases is that the worst that can happen is they throw Goldstein et. al. in the slammer which given that they appear to have the personality of the Grouch in Sesame street (being anoyed makes me happy) I suspect they would really, really enjoy...

I don't much care if 2600 can't point 'fuckxyz' at Ford. But I do care about the various deep linking cases.

The sheer eggregiousness of the 2600 case made it a pretty good test case. If 2600 lost the risk of collateral damage to serious deep linking would be minimal. If they win, well if you can point fuck at someone then you can probably point most anything.

The downside being that it was a pretty risky case that could easilly have backfired. 2600 made a really good target for the MPAA in the DeCSS case. My concern about this case was that they might easily have got a Reagan appointee conservative judge who might well have made an idiotic rulling because he disliked the 2600 people trying to turn a court case into performance art.

I had been asked to give expert testimony in the case but could not because Ford's legal people had added my employer in as a defendant in yet another case.

I suspect that the basic problem is that either the Ford lawyers are fundamentally incompetent or an incompetent manager insisted on a lawsuit. Starting a law suit in an untested area of law is a pretty stupid first recourse if your interest is to solve a problem. It is possible that Ford really wanted to have this area of law settled, but I doubt it.

It is the cases like this one that led to the charges for domain names in the first place. Until people started to file lawsuits registration was free.

Re:Hell, Ford should be happy with the link!

[rworne]

When you've produced nearly 1/3rd of the cars on the road in the US you can expect a lot of people to not like you =]

That 1/3 number must be an overall average. I live in Los Angeles, and travelled to various locations in the US, and I can say that about half (or more) of the passenger vehicles on the road in LA are imports, with a significant number of them either a Civic, Accord, Camry (usu. gold-colored) or a Corolla. The other half are SUV's

In the south, imports are much rarer, but then again, about half of the passenger vehicles are trucks (with or without "puppy crusher" mods).

In the northeast, like Philly lots of US-made cars also predominate the roads.

Re:Hell, Ford should be happy with the link!

[Clover_Kicker]

>But what were they going to bitch about? Anything
>in particular? I guess that's what I am curious
>about. Is it anything significant, or is it just
>another excuse to bitch?

Sounds like it was just an excuse to bitch.

From http://www.fordreallysucks.com/more_info.html

>Months after the threat from General Motors, we
>pointed the domain at various competitors of GM.
>It was our eventual plan either to find or put
>together a site that would provide a forum for
>people critical of the company. While that was
>being done, we pointed the domain to other sites
>that might be of interest to people who weren't
>big fans of General Motors. One of these (it made
>sense to us then and it still does now, albeit
>less so after what we've learned) was Ford.

Re:Hell, Ford should be happy with the link!

[Anonymous Coward]

fordslawyersareidiots.com is still available.

Re:Hell, Ford should be happy with the link!

[Pooua]

But what were they going to bitch about? Anything in particular? I guess that's what I am curious about. Is it anything significant, or is it just another excuse to bitch?

If you have to ask "why," you aren't 2600 material.

Re:Hell, Ford should be happy with the link!

[Mad Marlin]

But what were they going to bitch about? Anything in particular? I guess that's what I am curious about. Is it anything significant, or is it just another excuse to bitch?

Well, there is the fact that they won't sell me a V8 in a 4-door sedan unless I am willing to buy a $43,000 Cadillac. Bring back the Caprice, damn it! Otherwise my next car will have to be a Ford Crown Victoria.

Outdated facts....

[Dios]

Its interesting that the links info is a bit outdated.
(http://www.fordreallysucks.com/more_in fo.html)

The page hasn't been updated in some time. Nasser is no longer president/ceo of ford. In fact, a Ford family member (William Clay Ford) is now running things again (which hasn't happened in a while).

Check out http://money.cnn.com/2001/10/30/ceos/ford/ for info.

Re:Outdated facts....

[Anonymous Coward]

A friend of my dad who works with him at GM's last name is Ford. Just a fun little anecdote with not much relevance at all =]

Re:Outdated facts....

[carlos_benj]

Its interesting that the links info is a bit outdated.

If you read the 2600 account you'd know that the page hasn't been updated while the action was pending. They now intend to point it somewhere else.

Re:Outdated facts....

[Anonymous Coward]

i used to beat up a kid whose dad had a friend named ford. small world, eh?

Re:Outdated facts....

[ImaLamer]

In fact, a Ford family member (William Clay Ford) is now running things again (which hasn't happened in a while).

Great more Nazi's!

So will they sue me now over www.fordwasanazi.com?

Re:Outdated facts....

[Anonymous Coward]

What do you have against nazis anyways? Are you an anti-aryanite or something?

Freedom of speech?

[kafka93]

I'm afraid I'm going to post without having too great an understanding of the entire situation - nothing new to /., of course, but still.. at any rate, the site in question isn't too immediately informative as to what all of this is about, but as far as I can tell, Ford took 2600 to court for pointing www.fuckgeneralmotors.com to Ford's website.

Now, whilst I'm all for freedom of speech, isn't it perhaps understandable that Ford should have been upset, or concerned, by this? Whilst the link was presumably set up as a kind of compliment to Ford (at GM's expense), it's easy to see that Ford would be upset by such a move - the page might well, to the non-tech-savvy, look as though it had been set up *by* Ford themselves; hardly a professional image to betray.

In cases like this where it's not immediately clear *who* is doing the "speaking", isn't the concept of "freedom of speech" clouded? Wouldn't this stray into libel territory, where words are being essentially "put into the mouth" of Ford? Certainly, anyone with the technical knowhow could determine who the page *was* owned by - but many people don't have that technical knowledge, and will go with their gut reactions.

Of course, legal action is a typically heavy-handed response. Nonetheless, if I'm reading the situation correctly then I can feel a certain empathy for Ford's initial reaction..

Re:Freedom of speech?

[heimotikka]

I agree - it isn't good publicity to use domain names like fuck[competitor] to point your site (who ever does it) - most of people really get the idea that the domain name owner and site content is from same source. To emphasize my business I would never say anything so negative about competitors.

This seems like ethical question I've never seen discussed before. I understand both sides - would have been professional from Ford to ask 2600-guys pointing fuckGM to Ford's site - but also vice versa... would have been very nice from 2600 to ask Ford what they would like if fuckGM pointed to their site. And afterwards it isn't hard to say what would have happened...

2600: Can we point fuckGM to your site?
Ford: That's not good business for us, please don't.
2600: We'll do it anyway.
Ford: See you in court.

Eh?

Re:Freedom of speech?

[Peyna]

I see more of a problem if you point a domain to an IP address of someone that doesn't wish you to. Take all the "fuck GM" and "ford sucks" stuff out of the picture and look at it that way. Should you be able to register a domain and point it to an IP Address you do not own with permission? I can't exactly forward all my mail at home to Bill Gate's desk without causing some trouble. (Although, that would be 'forwarding' which would be different from giving out my address as his).

I see a potential problem there. Pointing a domain to an IP address that you don't own. This brings up the issue of the legality of linking, etc. as well I suppose. Is there any difference when it's at this level?

As far as libel, I don't see it. They aren't saying "Ford rapes little boys", they're saying "GM sucks".

Re:Freedom of speech?

[Fiver-rah]

Among other things, Ford could choose to block the link from 2600 so that it didn't get forwarded. They're not powerless in this matter. But Ford's filing says: "The public recognizes, and often relies on the expectation, that links to a company's official web site address are sponsored by, affiliated with, or somehow approved by that company." Which is bogus.

Sure, Ford may be upset or concerned about this. And I suppose I can understand why they're unhappy, but they can't claim that people don't have the right to link to their site, period.

Re:Freedom of speech?

[SirSlud]

Well, you're not forwarding mail, you're forwarding visitors to your house to Bill Gates' house. And Bill Gates can simply lock his gate.

Same with a domain pointer. A simple programmatic check on the front page of Ford's site (about 3 lines of code) would turn away 99.99% of all the people coming through that domain. Ford chose not to deny those visitors, which would have accomplished everything they wanted .. they chose to sue the person telling everyone to g there.

There's no problem, because the target can always diffuse the pointer. Ford was simply trying to use bully tactics to dissuade people from doing similar things even if its totally preventable by the alleged 'victim' of this terrible terrible crime - uncool, and like any company hypocritically attempting to keep their image cleaner than a bus full of Kumbaya-singin nuns, they deserved to lose.

Re:Freedom of speech?

[z_gringo]

hardly a professional image to betray

hahahaha.. That was a good one...

Re:Freedom of speech?

[catfood]

Well, you're not forwarding mail, you're forwarding visitors to your house to Bill Gates' house.

You're not even going that far. You're just saying, if anyone ever asks about "suckyville" or "hobohouse," what you're referring to is such-and-such address. Nobody's forwarding visitors. The visitors might choose to forward themselves, maybe.

Suing someone for doing that is like suing someone for referring to your street address in less-than-glowing terms.

Re:Freedom of speech?

[lfourrier]

if you point a domain to an IP address of someone that doesn't wish you to
False:
by setting up a domain name, you say that some string of char is to be understood as some number.
It happens that browser and user expect it to have some meaning, but you are only paying for the right to say: this string is to be translated as this 32bit number.

Re:Freedom of speech?

[Fulcrum of Evil]

A simple programmatic check on the front page of Ford's site (about 3 lines of code) would turn away 99.99% of all the people coming through that domain.

A simple check of the host parameter (required for Http 1.1) would do the same thing for all of Ford's pages. No coding required, as this is handled by the server.

Re:Freedom of speech?

[burgburgburg]

One of the major points of this is that 2600 was under no obligation to ask Ford. Freedom of speech allows them to point it to them if they so desire.

And Ford didn't need to ask 2600 to stop pointing it at them. As others have pointed out, Ford could have stopped people from seeing their site after typing in that domain with extraordinarily little effort.

So it is obvious that Ford was NOT trying to protect it's business. It was NOT trying to protect it's image. It WAS trying to create a whole new set of corporate rights by asserting that nobody could point/redirect to their site without their express consent. Fortunately (in a rare occurence lately) a court was sensible and recognized how very wrong Ford was and dismissed the suit. My shock is that Ford gave up. They're wrong, but that ususally doesn't stop corporate America.

Re:Freedom of speech?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why would ford not want people to link to their site. They don't want to discourage people from linking to them in good faith, however they do have an image to protect. I don't think that they are involved in a grand scheme to gain new corporate rights, but instead just don't want to be associated with a bunch of immature 15 year old kids who think its funny to register domian names like xreallysucks.com, for some company x.

Re:Freedom of speech?

[tomhudson]

Or they could have done a redirect back to 2600, or to GM, or whereever.

Stupid is as stupid does. In this case, it's Ford (or at least their IT and legal departments, for not being original thinkers) that sucks.

Re:Freedom of speech?

[CurtisRWC]

You raise a very interesting point here.

I wonder if the same laws covering impersonations would apply here - in some way or another. For example, if I registered a domain name and pointed it to the website of a local police station or the FBI or somesuch, could I be charged with impersonating law enforcement?

Re:Freedom of speech?

[Chris Carollo]

Well, you're not forwarding mail, you're forwarding visitors to your house to Bill Gates' house. And Bill Gates can simply lock his gate.

But the issue is whether there's a reasonable perception that said forwarding was done by Bill Gates himself, and if so, whether he should have a say into whether it should be allowed to exist.

Though Ford clearly didn't have a very reasonable response, I can see their point that most web users would assume that it was done by Ford itself.

Regarding a programmatic check, would they have to explicitly disallow every objectionable domain-forwarder individually? Or could they stop them en masse? But what about links from legit sources like search engines that they do want? (I honestly don't know how it works, these aren't rhetorical questions).

Re:Freedom of speech?

[dalangalma]

Hmm. That's tricky, but I'd say it wouldn't be impersonation because you're not modifying their site at all - you're just sending people to their site. Impersonating law enforcement would be registering a domain like www.fbi.com (hypothetical, I didn't even check to see if this exists) and then making your own FBI lookalike page, but with different content. I don't think redirection can be called impersonation.

Re:Freedom of speech?

[Kynde]

In cases like this where it's not immediately clear *who* is doing the "speaking", isn't the concept of "freedom of speech" clouded?

I am not american, but I still have to say NO.
Freedom of speech, wether it's from anonymous sources or not in this case, should not be conditional.

In this case Ford could've said that they're not behind the www.fuckgeneralmotors.com and that should've been the end of discussion.

Re:Freedom of speech?

[SirSlud]

> Regarding a programmatic check, would they have to explicitly disallow every objectionable domain-forwarder individually? Or could they stop them en masse? But what about links from legit sources like search engines that they do want? (I honestly don't know how it works, these aren't rhetorical questions).

No, you can do a programmatic check which would reject only those coming from the domain in question (generalmotorssucks.com) in this case.

In that sense, it really doesn't matter if people think Bill Gates is 'pulling' rather than me 'pushing', because Bill Gates could just as easily redirect all those requests to SirSludSucks.com or whatever he/she pleases (or just drop the connection entirely, or reidrect to a page that decries my actions, or any other choice that a free-speech enabled country will allow .. )

Re:Freedom of speech?

[Skuld-Chan]

why doesn't ford just set up their website so when someone types in that URL it just redirects the user to another site - maybe 2600.com? Or maybe a site explaining that 2600 is a bunch of losers and here's why.

Re:Freedom of speech?

[MAXOMENOS]

I understand Ford getting pissed about this. I understand them not wanting gmsucks.com to point to the Ford web site. The way they went about asking was a breach of ettiquette ... they could have asked, politely, but instead they sent a bark letter.

If nothing else, this defeat will demonstrate that bark letters don't work with geeks. That lesson in and of itself might save Ford a lot of PR trouble in the next few decades.

Re:Freedom of speech?

[Anonymous Coward]

Now, whilst I'm all for freedom of speech, isn't it perhaps understandable that Ford should have been upset, or concerned, by this?

Yeah Ford has a right to cry about it, but by no means does their distain for the URL linking in question consitute a change of first admendment rights. It's assinine to think that anyone wanting to get to Ford would try the URL to reach them.. I guess I just don't see what all the fuss is about. Is having a domain name that is clearly not affilliated with a company but expresses a distaste for it any different than posting your views in a public forum? Granted what I just described isn't exactly what happened, the real situation is far less significant.

Re:Freedom of speech?

[Richard_at_work]

One of the major points of this is that 2600 was under no obligation to ask Ford. Freedom of speech allows them to point it to them if they so desire.

Bollocks, does this mean i can redirect a porn chat line to your home phone number? can i redirect all my spam email or junk mail to your house? i dont think so. Get a life and stop hiding behind freedom of speech.

Wrong Domain?

[goldspider]

I'm not sure if anyone notice the link to "a certain domain" but why would Ford take issue with a disparaging site about one of its competitors (General Motors)?

Editors, you might want to check that link.

Re:Wrong Domain?

[Joel Ironstone]

When you click the learn about link, you are redirected to fordreallysucks.com

Re:Wrong Domain?

[Anonymous Coward]

the page contains two links - one to fordsucks, another to ford.com itself.

Re:Wrong Domain?

[pagsz]

No, the link is right. FuckGeneralMotors.com is indeed the site in question.

However, the site does not disparage General Motors (aside from the domain name, of course). What it does do, however, is redirect you to the Ford website. That's what Ford is upset about. To the average idiot, it may seem that the site was set up by Ford.

Restating the obvious since 1992,

www.fordreallysucks.com link within

[peterdaly]

Click the link. May not be the best "jump point", but the page contains a link to www.fordreallysucks.com.

May be run by the same person.

-Pete

Re:www.fordreallysucks.com link within

[goldspider]

This is Slashdot; I don't click on questionable links, even if they're on the main page. I can think of one very good reason why I don't blindly click links ;)

Re:www.fordreallysucks.com link within

[Nightpaw]

This is Slashdot; I don't click on questionable links, even if they're on the main page. I can think of one very good reason why I don't blindly click links ;)

Ummm, because you're too lazy to look at your browser's status bar?

Re:www.fordreallysucks.com link within

[goldspider]

That doesn't help if the offending re-direct is in the page, as opposed to the URL. I've run across plenty of those kinds of goatse landmines..

If Jay & Silent Bob Were Part of 2600...

[dbretton]

we would see the following domain name registered:

http://www.fuckfordfuckthemuptheirstupidasses.co m

(which is free, btw)

-D

Re:If Jay & Silent Bob Were Part of 2600...

[rgoer]

Silent Bob may well be technically inclined for such a venture, but Jay? I remember this quote distinctly: "What the fuck is the internet?"

You mean...

[teamhasnoi]

This isn't the "Jilted lovers of Gerarld, Lita, and Mary Ford" support group?

Freedom to Speak..

[lionchild]

I'm surprised any of these suits would have ever gotten anywhere. These seem to clearly be an issue of one person expressing their -opinion- about various things. Either GM, (the company or the product) and Ford, (etiher the company or the product.) Get upset all you want, it's their constituational right to have an opinion and express it.

Or has that been changed recently too?

Re:Freedom to Speak..

[carlos_benj]

Awk! Pieces of eight. Pieces of eight. Pieces of... ERROR: General Protection Fault. [Parity Error.]

Now that's funny!

'E's not dead. 'E's pinin' away for the fijords.

Re:Freedom to Speak..

[zoward]

I'm surprised any of these suits would have ever gotten anywhere.

The point was not go "get the suit anywahere"; I strongly suspect that Ford knew it would lose once this made it to court. The point was the scare 2600 into dropping the site. Like many other large companies, Ford uses this tactic in lieu of any actual legal right to shut down registrants of domains with "ford" in their names. fordreallysucks.com is full of anectodes of this.

Fortunately, 2600 doesn't scare easily. And the precedent set will help protect other domain name registrants who are being bullied by Corporate America.

Re:Freedom to Speak..

[Anonymous Coward]

maybe the MPAA could start suing people for writing unfavorable reviews of their movies

da

[Vodak]

2600 finally has something to report on which is positive to them. Good thing with H2K2 on the horizon =]

Try reading the article

[Salsaman]

Ford never made any attempt to contact us before filing this lawsuit in federal court. A simple request to not point the domain at them would most likely have wound up with our doing just that, since the project really had nothing to do with Ford in the first place. But they never even tried to resolve this. In addition, Ford has the ability to block our pointer from reaching their homepage, which would accomplish everything they wanted. Again, they made no attempt to do this.

Re:Try reading the article

[linzeal]

Someone mod this down at the end of the day one point so he can remain at 49.

Re:Try reading the article

[ethereal]

Whatever. Just deal with the karma cap like the rest of us.

Re:Try reading the article

[kafka93]

I read the article. However, whilst I agree that Ford could have circumvented the redirection, this doesn't negate the potential issue that companies may potentially be at risk of having others redirect (transparently, even) to their sites in a similar fashion - these cases are *not* as clear cut as simply linking to a page, in my opinion. Is it entirely fair for the burden of responsibility to be placed upon the companies to be aware of everything that is "said using their voice", so to speak?

I'm not necessarily suggesting otherwise; I'm merely pointing out that the ethical arguments *aren't* as simple as they might otherwise seem. To extend (rather excessively) the analogy to human speech, what people seem to be saying is akin to "Well, I can disguise myself as you, put on silly or offensive clothes, and have people believe that I *am* you -- but that's okay because, well, you could stop me if you knew I was doing it".

Again, I think Ford might have been more.. delicate, in this situation -- I'd blame trigger-happy lawyers. But the point has already been made by somebody else that it's not as though 2600 *asked* Ford before setting up the redirection, either. Who's being inconsiderate of whom?

Re:Try reading the article

[Anonymous Coward]

Try reading the article

You must be new here. It is a long standing tradition to post first and read later.

Silent 'L'

[carlos_benj]

A Volvo repair shop near me is named "Island Vo Vo"; the L is silent...

The only 'L' I see is in 'island' - does that mean they pronounce it 'eyeand Vo Vo'?

Re:Silent 'L'

[Anonymous Coward]

VoLVo - L = Vo Vo

Re:Silent 'L'

[joss]

yeah, what the fuck is up with that.

The l isn't silent in island anyway, the s is. So what vosvo ? Even if it was that would make about as much sense as my toejam, as it is though...

erm...

[oPless]

I think one of the major points here is that Ford didn't even have to decency of saying "Hey guys, thats funny, now can you point it elsewhere"

They sued, and lost. Good.

Usually you would think it is just plain old good manners to say "look, stop that, I don't like it" ... oddly enough 2600 are adults, and I'm sure they would have pointed the domain elsewhere.

Also if they had a competent sysadmin, they could have just blocked that url by tweaking IIS. Maybe their MSCEs couldn't work it out perhaps...

Anyhow this smacks of plain ignorance (on Fords part) rather than anything else.

2600

[Entropy248]

You'd think that 2600 could survive the Slashdot effect

The article is wrong!

[www.sorehands.com]

The article say there is precidential value to this case, there is not (unfortunately). Courts can look at this case, but the courts are free to ignore this since this is trial court level decisions, not appeals court level.

They claim it is improbable to get attorney fees. If they look at some of the cases on Rule 68 and cases that provide for attorney fees, there is precident that says when there is a fee shifting provision with a requirement for the other side to pay costs, the costs do include fees.

Since the case was dismissed for failure to state a claim and they appealed it, but dropped it, I would argue that ford's lawyers should be sanctioned under rule 11 (filing a frivilous action).

Re:The article is wrong!

[Anonymous Coward]

Presumably Ford's lawyers dropped the appeal because, as 2600 stated, they are trying to build precedent about this sort of linking. If they fail at the appeals level, it would hurt this goal. By dropping what they may have assumed was a somewhat doomed appeal, they have only failed this time, and can waite for a stronger case to arise to build precedent.

Dan

Re:The article is wrong!

[Atlantix]

As the article explains, the reason this is considered precedential is that the Sixth Circuit Appeals Court (the one that would have heard this appeal) has already used the results of original trial when they decided a separate case. FORD quite rightly realized that their chance of winning the appeal was rather tiny since the Appeals Court had already approved the original ruling.

--Atlantix2000

Re:The article is wrong!

[www.sorehands.com]

A party pointing to a a case, where the appeals court decides the case without making reference to the case mentioned in the brief does not grant it precidential value. If the court mentioned the case in the decision, then it would have some derivitive precidential value.

Re:The article is wrong!

[sealawyer]

There is precedential value to the case, but it is not binding precedent, merely persuasive. So you're correct in stating the article which said the ruling was "binding" was a bit off.

Still, if the Sixth Circuit is citing the case in its opinions that's strong indication to every other judge in the Sixth Circuit that if they need to seriously follow the precedent, or risk being overturned. No judge wants that.

I think rule 11 sanctions are completely out of the question though.

Re:The article is wrong!

[www.sorehands.com]

I looked at the Taubman decision. The decision does not refer to 2600 case. I belive that Hank's brief referred to 2600 case, but the decision never referenced the 2600 case.

I was thinking that it might apply to the appeal. I would think that being dismissed on a failure to state a claim might be lame enough to claim rule 11. I know rule 11 isn't ruled against some attorneys enough.

I did something like this a few years ago...

[i_want_you_to_throw_]

With whitearyanresistance.com, org and net. I just wrote a Perl script that would randomly throw people to other sites like algore2000.com, blacksonblondes.com, Southern Poverty Law Center and other places.

It did get me a few death threats and a mention on the weekly radio program of white supremacist and uber sister smoocher Tom Metzger's.

So to Emmanuel Goldstein, CONGRATULATIONS! You have certainly taken your ideas to lengths that would stop other men cold. Most people would give up after the first lawsuit.

To others, if you want to do some nifty activism, hijack urls of organizations you can't stand. If it isn't a registered trademark (which "white aryan resistance" wasn't) you can have fun and get death threats (mostly from illiterates).

It's fun, try it.

Re:I did something like this a few years ago...

[Entropy248]

I'd like to get www.heroinoverdose.com and direct it to Alice in Chain's Web Page.
While I'm at it, I could also get www.ihaveaholeinmyhead.com and point it to a random Nirvana web page.
Or I could get www.iamnotakidnapper.com and point it to US Rep. Gary Condit's page.
Or www.softwarecrash.com and point it to M$'s page.

Certainly, some of these examples are a bit over the top in terms of appropriateness. But, that's the point. Where do you draw the line between an "appropriate" redirect and an "inappropriate" one? Who is to say what is appropriate and what isn't? Since everyone here seems to have such faith in the US court system (although I'd respectfully disagree with you about that opinion), you wouldn't want to leave it up to the courts. The easiest, and probably the best, method of dealing with it is to ban all such redirects as 2600's. Okay, it was hysterically funny and everyone in my office (even non-techies!) laughed. Definately, Ford handled this completely wrong. But, it was inappropriate and although nowhere near as offensive as some of my examples, why not just nip the problem in the bud?

Re:I did something like this a few years ago...

[Anonymous Coward]

Did you see the ads for the new South Park season? They were talking about how they're going to go on about all these current events and then the last thing it says is "We'll show a congressmen's involvement in the kidnapping of a girl." or something to that effect. It cuts out after they say that and says "oh, maybe we shouldn't do that."

None of them are inappropriate. David Letterman called the Catholic Church the new largest crime organization in the US after the death of that one mobster. It might "hurt some people's feelings". But too bad, because everyone knows it is true.

Re:I did something like this a few years ago...

[crumley]

Where do you draw the line between an "appropriate" redirect and an "inappropriate" one?

The point is that you don't draw a line. There is no reason to draw a line. If you think something is inappropriate, don't go to that site. Or if you feel compelled, complain to them about it, but there is no reason to regulate this kind of speech.

Its really similar to TV or talk radio. If I don't like the humor on a show I don't watch it. If I find the opions espoused by a host inane or baseless, I don't listen. That's the great thing about free speech, anyone can say whatever they want, within certain reasonable limits. I certainly don't think any of the examples presented here are anywhere near any of those limits.

People don't have a right not to be offended.

Re:I did something like this a few years ago...

[smallpaul]

That reminds me of the time the mathies took over alt.niggers. The new FAQ pointed out that the newsgroup name was an acronym for "Number theory, Integration, Graph theory, Group theory, Enumeration, Recursion, Set theory".

Re:I did something like this a few years ago...

[smallpaul]

More complete account for the history books. http://isomorphisms.addr.com/blogger/2000_06_18_ar chive.html#381702

Re:I did something like this a few years ago...

[Anonymous Coward]

And what did you think you would accomplish by this stunt? *shrug* I just type in resist.com when I want to check out terrible tommy's site.

If your firewall blocks 2600.com, do this...

[i_want_you_to_throw_]

http://www.2600.ca

:-) JC

Re:If your firewall blocks 2600.com, do this...

[Lexic0n]

Sadly, our firewall at work blocks this, too. Alas! What's a boy to do?

Its about time.

[j-turkey]

Its about time that 2600 won a court case...especially one involving linking (or, mybe more appropriately, redirecting). I only wish that they were this unilaterally successful in defending themselves in their DVDCCA case (or, for that matter, even partially successful).

-Turkey

America still works - sometimes

[FearUncertaintyDoubt]

Yes, America is held captive to money and power and corporations. But you know what? So is every other nation on earth that has ever existed! Only in America do politicians go to jail for taking bribes. Only in America do they lose their job for having affairs.

The point is that, though the system is corrupt here, it's worse everywhere else, and has been worse. Think about it. 2600, a bunch described as hackers, vandals, criminals, terrorists, up against Ford Motor Company, which probably has bought thousands of politicians and other officials over the years. Anywhere else, the trial would be a foregone conclusion. 2600 would have been summarily ordered to stop whatever Ford didn't want them doing and that would have been it.

Re:America still works - sometimes

[Anonymous Coward]

Re - Only in America etc
And in the UK too ...

Jeffrey Archer (British "Lord") is in jail for purgery: http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/uk/newsid_1447000 / 447880.stm

Jonathan Aitken - went there for libel: http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/uk_politics/newsi d_593000/593724.stm

The US isn't the only country with at least a semi-decent legal system, nor the only one with accountable politicians.

Re:America still works - sometimes

[Anonymous Coward]

How do you figure that? The previous president was guilty of multiple crimes and won't see a day - how about OJ? How much time do you think the worldcomm and enron execs are going to see? Hell, the enron execs cashed out bigtime...

Re:America still works - sometimes

[Anonymous Coward]

> though the system is corrupt here, it's worse everywhere else, and has been worse.

Cool. Then since other people get away with murder, rape, etc, etc. I should be able to as well. Thanks.

Re:America still works - sometimes

[Anonymous Coward]

I find this odd.

"Only in America do politicians go to jail for taking bribes."

And in other western countries they don't?

I don't mean to troll, but I really don't understand this backpatting mentality. Goverments are messed up. Some are more than others. The US has a mix history. Most of the time civil liberities are frought for outside the system of government. Take the underground railroad, freespeech fights by the IWW, cafe sit-in by the civil-rights movement, the right to assimble during the earily days of the labor movement, to name a few.

Usally the fight is the government vs. the people with few exceptions. The US is no different.

-Jeff

as a side note.

"Only in America do they lose their job for having affairs."

Acually Billy-boy didn't. An Australian saying during the Clinton-Lewinsky thing sums up my feelings on the subject. "I'm glad we got the criminals and they (the US) got the Puritans."

-Jeff

Re:America still works - sometimes

[Anonymous Coward]

LOL! True, there are countries that are far worse (ironically, a large number of these countries are supported by the US). But, in many parts of the world (most parts of Europe, Australia, some parts of Asia) the result would have been such a foregone conclusion that Ford wouldn't have bothered suing them in the first place.

While the US is not at the bottom of the heap, it is hardly the shining light of democracy.

Re:America still works - sometimes

[lovebyte]

Only in America do politicians go to jail for taking bribes.
...
The point is that, though the system is corrupt here, it's worse everywhere else, and has been worse.

Who has moderated this post as insightful? It is nothing but misinformed stupidity. In (almost) all western countries politicians have been jailed for taking bribes. Maybe they did not loose their job for having affairs but then not everyone is as puritan as americans. And where are your facts concerning corruption?
You are a typical American that has never moved is obese bottom out of his country.

Re:America still works - sometimes

[Anonymous Coward]

The underground railroad? Laf.

Do you know how many slaves were actually saved by it? Probably something like 60 or 70. If even that. Nice propaganda, though.

Re:America still works - sometimes

[Peyna]

Levi Coffin himself helped about 3,000 slaves, Harriet Tubman about 300 on her own. Some estimates put it at about 100,000 overall.

If you're ever near Richmond, Indiana, I suggest you stop by the Levi Coffin house. Pretty neat stuff. The "underground railroad" existed for nearly 82 years. With your numbers, that's less than 1 a year.

Re:America still works - sometimes

[Hittite Creosote]

You think politicians abroad don't lose their jobs for having affairs? You've never heard of Britain's Conservative Party, have you?

Re:America still works - sometimes

[cruachan]

America does seem to have a bit of a problem with it's corporate culture though. Enron, Xerox, WorldCom. It's a pity America's accounting and business practises are not up to European levels of honesty and integrity.

Trademark Infringement?

[348]

This puzzles me. I see and understand both sides of this argument and in odd ways, support both sides. I am surprized Ford didn't go the trademark route, it seems that they would get more traction using a trademark infringement (working with GM)suit rather than the "wah wah wah, repointing" argument. Trademark laws although flawed in many ways are relatively clear. And all the freedom of speech stuff holds up only so far when it comes to trademark usage and ownership. Remember back a few years ago here on /. there was that guy who had the "sore Hands" sig, which was his link to his "I hate you" page for his former employer? Part of his downfall was his employer made use of his website against him and used the trademarked references as a slander argument. Couldn't the same apply here?

Does anyone know what GM;s stance on this was? The article doesn't mention it at all.

Re:Trademark Infringement?

[anthony_dipierro]

Trademark only applies if you're confusing your product for theirs, and trademark dilution only applies if you're infringing for commercial purposes (in interstate commerce).

Re:Trademark Infringement?

[Cato the Elder]

Trademark only applies if you're confusing your product for theirs, and trademark dilution only applies if you're infringing for commercial purposes

For example, calling yourself "Island Mercury" if you were a car repair shop but not an authorized Ford dealer.

Already included

[Anonymous Coward]

They fall under, at the very least, the productive category.

Of course, a company of that size will also employ slasckers.

Re:Already included

[Peyna]

This seems like a good time to note that GM went through and slashed a lot of upper management and high paying jobs to cut costs recently. Most other companies would have looked at the production line as the first place to go. GM knows the worth of their employees. I worked on the assembly line at one of their plants for a few months, and there was a lot of pride by the employees in the work they do. Even if it was just putting a few nuts and bolts on something. This is something I don't see a lot of at other places of employment. You usually hear people talking about how horrible where they work is and how they don't matter at all.

Even better quote

[Sabalon]

Based on this implausible hypothesis, Ford argues that the pointer to the IP address violates the "Federal Trademark Dilution Act" by "tarnishing" the pristine image of the brand associated in the media of late with so many SUV rollover accidents

Mixed up URLs

[macdaddy]

I think you've got a few URL mixed up. Why would ford care if someoneregistered "fuckgeneralmotors.com"? Hell I could see Ford doing that themselves.

Re:Mixed up URLs

[ajakk]

Did you even read any of the articles? Ford cared because the owner of "fuckgeneralmotots.com" pointed the domain name at ford.com. They thought that people would think that they (Ford) did do it, and that is why they sued. Ford did not want customers to think that they would buy such a domain name and point it at themselves.

Priceless.

[Anonymous Coward]

Defeating a "corporate juggernaut", Priceless.

Why is 2600 doing this anyway?

[agilen]

I'm sorry, I'm not too up on this case, but it seems to me like bunch of geeks crying "Freedom from the man!" over some stupid childish prank. I mean seriously, what is so great about being able to have fuckgeneralmotors.com and being allowed to link it to ford? /. is making this out to be some kind of huge victory for hacker freedom or something. I see it as a huge victory for people with way too much time on their hands who are just trying to be assholes all the time.

It seems like there is always a war to be fought around here, and I agree most of the time that some crappy stuff goes on. But why don't we put all of our resources into the fights that are worth fighting? If the "hacker community" wants to gain any sort of respect or acceptance so that people in power will listen to our side in say, fighthing the DMCA, it can't be whining about not having the right to do totally foolish things like point fuckgeneralmotors.com at Ford.

I certainly hope 2600 gets NO reimbursment from Ford for their legal fees. They don't deserve any. Cases like this are a waste of the legal system's resources, and I lose more respect for 2600 fighting and whining that they can't play a stupid prank than I do for Ford suing over this.

If this post gets modded as a troll, it just goes to prove how the /. crowd will latch onto any cause, whether its a worthy/useful cause or not. If not, well, maybe there is hope after all. Lets stop wasting our time, bolstering our image as whiney children, and actually fight about something useful.

Re:Why is 2600 doing this anyway?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why don't you learn before you speak. You just fail to see the larger picture. 2600 does what they can to defend some of the ideas and freedoms we enjoy. Look at the DVD case, a complete crock.

You say you want to fight about something useful, but I doubt you even have a cause or know what one is. You just like to sit back and talk but never do a thing.....typical....

Re:Why is 2600 doing this anyway?

[jafiwam]

Yes it is a childish prank. It is much less sophisticated than some of the fine TV programming such as Crank-Yankers or The Daily Show.

It should also be treated as such. If it is such a childish and unimportant event, why is Ford trying to sue the pants off 2600? Since when does ruining the finances of someone with a nasty lawsuit (and refusing to play nice to get a mutually agreeable resolution) an appropriate response to a prank?

It seems to me that the lawsuit is about the same as suing the neighbor kid because he thought it was fun to slap your car with a rolled up newspaper to make the alarm go of. Is THAT worth $100,000 per beep?

This IS a huge victory, something that is rare, but I hope we see more of. The lawyers have pushed people around for no reason too many times and gotten away with it. It is refreshing and a glimmer of hope that maybe they wont take over the planet after all.

In my opinion, this IS something useful to fight about. I hope that someday your financial future is threatened by some dumbass and a pack of lawyers. You deserve it.

Re:Why is 2600 doing this anyway?

[Anonymous Coward]

If you are "not too up on this case" then you should shut the fuck up. People who talk about things they know nothing about are fucking morons. This means you.

Re:Why is 2600 doing this anyway?

[Anonymous Coward]

You're goddamn right asshole! There should be "freedom from the man!" If I want to call you and asshole I can. And there is nothing you can do about it. It's called "FREE SPEECH!" I hope 2600 takes Ford to the fucking cleaners and gets all the money they spend and more! Corporate America needs to be taught that they do not own the Internet. It is OURS! We were here first and we can bitchslap them whenever we want. Money doesn't buy power here. Only knowledge can control power. So fuck corporate America and fuck you too pal!

Re:Why is 2600 doing this anyway?

[Hrothgar The Great]

Cases like this are a waste of the legal system's resources

That's what is really, really stupid about your entire argument. Ford brought on the lawsuit; 2600 defended themselves, and yet you blame 2600 for wasting the legal system's resources? How can that possibly make any sense whatsoever? Answer: it can't, and doesn't.

Re:Why is 2600 doing this anyway?

[agilen]

Maybe I wasn't so clear originally about the problem I have with all of this. I am not taking Ford's side on this issue, I am not taking 2600's side. I am saying that 2600 made this an issue, by not quietly pointing the domain name somewhere else. I can't imagine Ford not talking to them first about it. I don't think 2600 was just served with a lawsuit out of the blue. Sure, Ford probably threatened legal action in this initial confrontation...thats the way things work. 2600 claims that...

"Had Ford come to us and asked us not to point to them, in all likelihood we would have pointed it someplace else out of courtesy. But when demands and accusations are made without any attempt at communication, we have to object. After all, these tactics are designed to intimidate, and in most cases they work because people don't have the energy or resources to counter them. The fact that Ford has chosen to waste a huge amount of money and a whole lot of court time is something we find repulsive."

2600 finds this waste of resources repulsive. So do I. But the fact is, it would have all been avoided had 2600 pointed the domain name somewhere else, regardless of whether Ford had asked nicely or not so nicely. See the problem with /.'s take on all of this, is that they link all the articles from 2600, and take on this one biased viewpoint, and whine about it. "Corporate America is putting us down!" "You are taking away our free speech!" Well I'm sorry, it looks to me like in this case, 2600 was just looking for a fight, and the folks here are all too happy to jump on the bandwagon. Here's my favorite quote from one of the flames to my original post:

"You say you want to fight about something useful, but I doubt you even have a cause or know what one is. You just like to sit back and talk but never do a thing.....typical...."

I wonder what that AC's cause is? What does he/she do about it? How many people on /. actually voice their opionions outside of this site where most people will agree with them? My post wasn't about my "cause", my post was saying that being able link fuckgeneralmotors.com with ford is not worth fighting for. Its petty, and its not just Ford at fault here, its 2600 as well. And the people here just eat it all up, it gets them so excited. You know what? This whole case has absolutely no effect on me or 99% of the people who'll read it. Say all you want about free speech, its not defending my free speech, because I wouldn't bother with something as pointless as registering fuck{insert_corporation_here}.com

So go ahead, flame away, every time you do, its just going to provide more evidence for the immaturity of the people who would defend any story posted by michael or CmdrTaco, because that is what everyone else is doing. Now, if anyone has a well thought out rebuttal to my comments, please, by all means I would love to hear it, it would be quite a welcome relief from the majority of mindless flock following that seems to go on here.

Re:Why is 2600 doing this anyway?

[Anonymous Coward]

But the fact is, it would have all been avoided had 2600 pointed the domain name somewhere else, regardless of whether Ford had asked nicely or not so nicely.

Yes, that's true. But the point is 2600 doesn't want to, whether they were asked politely or not.

These sites, in and of themselves, are pointless. The idea that Ford, et al. are suing over them makes the public aware that such potentially dangerous free speech prohibition exists.

Re:Why is 2600 doing this anyway?

[Anonymous Coward]

are we to assume that your "FREE SPEECH" is free as in beer? Because calling someone an asshole is not the kind of "FREE SPEECH" that our constitution guarantees. So it's most definately not the kind of free that is usually associated with free speech.

Screw with their heads

[dimer0]

Set up some addresses in your host file, and make sure that takes precedance over DNS lookups.

[fords-ip] fordbites.com
[fords-ip] fordsucks.com
[fords-ip] ... (you get the picture)

Then sit and write a shell script that grabs their home page using each of these names, say, once per hour.

They'll be looking at their logs, and see all these Hostname: headers coming through and be totally confused. They'll come after you for spreading these "trademark-tarnishing" domains to the world -- but little do they it's just some stupid script on your server.

Actually, what may even be a bit cooler but takes more time - write a script that generates random Hostname: headers for all requests to Ford's servers..

Hmm.

Non-Issue Any More

[dimer0]

/- from 2600 -/

Ford Motor Company has officially and unconditionally conceded its complete, utter, and perpetual loss on the merits of the FORD v. 2600 "FuckGeneralMotors.com" case. Ford has dismissed its appeal to the Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, meaning that Ford has completely given up all attempts to reverse the victory that 2600 Enterprises won on December 20, 2001. The mutually agreed dismissal papers were officially entered by the Sixth Circuit on June 27, 2002.

It's those damn teenagers

[generic-man]

A Volvo repair shop near me is named "Island Vo Vo"; the L is silent, you see, because Ford really sucks.

No, it's because a bunch of teenage vandals got together and stole the 'L' off the sign. Rather than spend money to buy a new letter, the repair shop simply renamed itself.

Re:It's those damn teenagers

[dmouritsendk]

Yea, and now there probertly running around looking for signs with big I, N, U and X letters. So they can make thier hollywoodescue LINUX sign in silicon valley.

Re: levels of understanding

[King_TJ]

IMHO, it's very much a non-issue if redirection to another web page upsets the author of the original page. As a web user, it's your duty to learn the basics of its structure.

One of the primary concepts of the WWW is hyperlinking. By its very nature, it can be done by any site, to any site. An extension of this concept is web page re-direction. To blindly make an assumption that an unprofessional sounding domain name linked to a company's competitor was initally created by the first company is foolish.

Could this mistake still happen? Oh, absolutely! Should a company like Ford waste any time worrying about it? Nope! Once the user gets redirected to Ford's own web site - the site should speak for itself. If Ford's own site doesn't vouch for their professional nature and interest a reader in purchasing/leasing one of their vehicles - then the problem is entirely on Ford.

Re:LNUX $0.01 / share

[smcavoy]

It's about freedom of speech. Imagine you made fun of Ford. Imagine they could sue you for it. So yes it's silly, but it's also important that we don't give them an inch. Why? Because they will take a mile.

Ford had a point.. it happened to me once.

[enjo13]

Once, long ago (like '99;) ) when I worked in web development I was part of a simliar situation. One of our clients had recently dumped another designer (big nasty situation really)... The firm they had been working with was a pretty nasty bunch, but they had control of the domain being used by this company. Out of spite they pointed this domain to porn...

I realize that the company in question was really dumb in giving control of the domain to this group in the first place... but it did create a credibility problem for them..and that sucks.

Re:Ford had a point.. it happened to me once.

[Anonymous Coward]

To bad. That is life. If you make stupid decisions you have to live with it. There is no "undo" button. I could stand in the street and call you an asshole all day long. I could hold up signs and call you a dickhead. And there is nothing you could do to stop me. So, why is it any different on the web? If I don't like your company I can buy a domain that says: "yourcompanysucksdonkeydick.com" and there is not a goddamn thing you can do about it. Get over it and quit being such a jackass. You do not get to control what other people say or do.

Re:Ford had a point.. it happened to me once.

[handorf]

I'm really surprised there was no legal recourse for the company involved since it was, at least in some sense, abuse of their property (the domain name) and probably their trademark.

In this case, however, is wan't like you would REASONABLLY expect Ford to own the associated domain. 2600 bought it, it was theirs to do with as they pleased. IMHO, of course.

Slapp Suits are a terrible menace.

[uncoveror]

Slapp suits, that is suits meant to silence someone by falsely accusing them of libel or copyright infringement, knowing they don't have the resources to defend themselves, are a terrible menace to free speech. There should be greater consequences for wasting the courts' time with these. In some societies, anyone who came to court with a false accusation would recieve the same penalty the falsely accused would have recieved if convicted. If Ford were ordered to pay the amounts they sought from 2600, to 2600, then Slapp suits might go away. Trying them would be way to risky.

Re:Slapp Suits are a terrible menace.

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree with you but I wish that your thought also extended to false patent infringement cases. The way the patent system is currently set up to basically kill all small time creators (whether "inventors" or programmers) there needs to be something on the line for corporations. Perhaps after they're found to have pursued 3 (or some number of) frivolous patent suits for the same or a related set of patents, the involved patents from those cases are nullified and a fine is levied. That would grab their attention and hopefully curb a bit of the current behavior. Of course, regardless, the USPTO needs to be completely overhauled with a large change in policy and many firings.

Re:Slapp Suits are a terrible menace.

[uncoveror]

You have a good point. I did not think of patents in relation to the Ford/2600 case, but they don't seem to encourage innovation any more. They stifle it. The whole notion of intellectual property needs to be re-examined. An idea, once expressed, naturally belongs to the public domain. Patents, copyrights, and other protections on "intellectual property" are supposed to be temporary, to encourage creativity and innovation.

Re:Slapp Suits are a terrible menace.

[canadian_right]

Anti-SLAPP legislation is a start, but in most of the world's court systems the loser pays ALL of the winners costs including legal fees. This stops most frivolous cases, but there are still a few SLAPP suits from large corporations.

In Canada all civil cases (even a divorce case) can include the awarding of costs. This gives people a bit of incentive to be reasonable.

America should consider making this change as it might help lesen the amount of litigation.

Re:Slapp Suits are a terrible menace.

[myklgrant]

Simple solution to harrassment suits: Loser Pays all court costs. This is the rule in most countries where jurisprudence is based on English law. The U.S. is the only (?) exception.

Re:Slapp Suits are a terrible menace.

[MisterBlister]

America should consider making this change as it might help lesen the amount of litigation.

Who is going to make this change? Congress? What is the overwhelming profession of congresspeople previous to being elected? Lawyers..What group tends to make up a huge portion of their friends and business associates? Lawyers. Who gains to lose the most from decreases in litigation? Lawyers.

This won't get changed.

Sig

[Rupert]

Parrotty error would be "Pieces of seven! Pieces of seven!"

Why did Ford give up?

[burgburgburg]

That's the thing about this that I don't understand. I could suggest that in this climate of widespread corporate malfeasance (Xerox, Worldcom, Tyco, Imclone, Enron, etc.), the extremely petty and stupid nature of this lawsuit might reflect poorly on them.

That's the best explanation I can come up with. Does anybody else know their actual reasons for buckling? It's so uncharacteristic of a company that has the money to stop fighting even when they're completely wrong.

Re:Why did Ford give up?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ummm...cuz they were gonna lose.

fnord?

[sugrshack]

okay... for a second I thought I saw them... just my mind playing tricks. I see the Fords!

Re:fnord?

[renehollan]

...Shea and Wilson, if I'm not mistaken.

Re:2600 - a kiddes mag

[Anonymous Coward]

It seems stupid domain names and lawsuits like this are the only way for 2600 to get its face in the news anymore. I stopped buying the magazine a few years ago when it was pushing $5 an issue. To damned expensive for what little it has in it.

FORD needed this!!!

[J23SE]

It's important, because we all know that almost every single idiot would, probably by typing in random names in their browser, hit the site. If they assumed that Ford created the site, they would invariably enter into a state of shock that would dismantle their previous image of a perfectly clean, polite corporate America, which would cause them to instantly disgard all notions of buying Ford products.

We have all seen this effect at work on Slashdot, where we have seen an instant loss of 100,000 sales when associations such as the MPAA and RIAA commit heinous actions, because apparently the human spirit is absolutely ideological and not driven by desires.

If you don't sense the sarcasm, take a rusty nail and castrate yourself immediately.

Re:Here's Why [wildly off-topic]

[Clover_Kicker]

> Sig Reply: Wow. That's from a C64, right?
> Load "$",8,1
> LOADING
> READY.
> list

That actually doesn't do what you think it does...

The final ",1" argument will attempt to load the directory listing as a machine code file instead of a BASIC program, so you won't get a useable directory listing.

What you really want is LOAD "$", 8.

(For anyone who cares, the Commodore machines made the directory table of a tape or diskette available as a special file called "$". You LOADed the special file from a device (1 for tape, 8 for diskette), and the names of the files were loaded into memory, in the form of a BASIC program that you could then LIST.)

Heh heh, fond memories. Those were good days, I adored my C64, but I sure wouldn't want to go back!

*sucks Domains

[waldoj]

Does this set any sort of precedent (legal or practical) in favor of *sucks.* domain names? Is the owner of ClearChannelSucks.org on better footing now than he was a week ago? (I hope so. :)

-Waldo Jaquith

finally

[signingis]

Now maybe they can clear out some room for HACKING articles instead of this POOR-US-THE-MAN-IS-KEEPING-US-DOWN shite they've been passing off for the past couple years. Oh wait, the MPAA and RIAA are still around. Nevermind.

Ford sucks? NO!

[linuxtuba]

Ford's produce the most reliable cars out there. Maybe from the view of website domain name choices, and where to point them, they are not agreeable. But when I see a souped up Honda Civic, using it's "high output" 1.6 liter VTEC, and laugh because my '68 Mustang will kill it in any race. Ford may not be the best in this (court) case, but I hope the general consesus of the slashdot community isn't support for all those rice-burning Civic's, Integra's, Eclipses. Yuck!

Actually, I could almost make the case that Ford engines are much more "open" and easier to work on then their Asian, difficult to work on (read "closed") counterparts, but that's a whole other post...

~Stephen

Driving a ford is like rooting your mum

[Anonymous Coward]

- It just doesnt happen.

I don't know why...

[zBoD]

this makes me want to register all the fuck.com and sucks.com and to make them point to ford.com...

BoD

Slap suits and Roman Justice

[func]

Hey, been reading the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Gibbon - and came across some interesting parallels. Apparently, during the reign of Commodus, if a wealthy criminal was accused of a crime, he could buy his innocence, and even go so far as to imprision his accuser, all with cash.

Frightenly similar to things these days, no? At least the good guys are making a little headway...

Re:Slap suits and Roman Justice

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow! That does sound a lot like a modern slapp suit. I'll add that to a growing list of ways America resembles Rome. I hope the Visigoths aren't just about to come over our hills, but they may be.

Yaaah 2600 !

[Maserati]

WTG Guys !

{just posting to erase a mismoderation on my part before the meta bandits get to me).

Abuse of Process

[Anonymous Coward]

After the lawsuit is settled, shouldn't 2600 file a lawsuit against Ford for abuse of process?

It's like complaining to my boss everytime someone won't do something for me. He hates it when his time is wasted.

me: So-and-so refuses to do this-and-that so I can get my work done.
boss: Did you ask them to do this-and-that?
me: Well, no but I
boss: get the f*ck out of my office.
me: but
boss: now!

I'm not a web page designer

[interstellar_donkey]

But could'nt ford just as easily (and cheaply) put a little script in their page that checked for the refering web page?

When it showed as 'fuckgeneralmoters.com' as the referer, simply redirect to a disclaimer?

It seems that would be far more logical, save far more in legal fees, and would avoid any confusion.

Again, I could be wrong.

Re:I'm not a web page designer

[Pooua]

But could'nt ford just as easily (and cheaply) put a little script in their page that checked for the refering web page?

So, if someone represents me in public as saying something about another person, you think that *I'm* at fault if I don't correct the misperception the way you think I should? It's not enough for you that 2600 is making Ford look cheap and underhanded against GM; you have to complain that Ford didn't resolve its complaint the way *you* want, rather than the way the law allows.

So, what happens if 1000 of these dummy sites pop up? Is Ford supposed to simply and quietly edit its script each time someone comes up with another stupid trick? Do you think that's the reason that people hire network administrators?

Some kid throws mud on your window. You can wipe it off easily and cheaply. But, why should that kid be allowed to throw mud on your window? Wouldn't you talk to the responsible person to make sure the kid stops throwing mud on your window? Only, at 2600, there are no responsible people; they are a bunch of criminals.

Re:I'm not a web page designer

[workingstiff]

You've obviously never worked at a Ford plant.

I'd be shocked if the IT department could even figure out how to type 'fuckgeneralmotors.com' into their address bar. But, hey, I'm not bitter. No...

Re:I'm not a web page designer

[markmoss]

So, what happens if 1000 of these dummy sites pop up? Is Ford supposed to simply and quietly edit its script each time someone comes up with another stupid trick?

1) Reject anything coming from a site whose URL contains the strings "fuck" or "suck". There are many ways to evade that, like thinking of a non-obscene synonym, but most people with enough imagination have real work to do... (This might be a good thing to add to any business web site setup, BTW.)

2) Don't worry about what you might do about a thousand of anything until you've got more than one.

3) It's always easier to ask politely than to file a lawsuit, and sometimes it works. And asking politely carries far less risk of inspiring a thousand more people to carry out various anonymous attacks. ;-)

Re: I'm not a web page designer

[elemental23]

1) Reject anything coming from a site whose URL contains the strings "fuck" or "suck". There are many ways to evade that, like thinking of a non-obscene synonym, but most people with enough imagination have real work to do... (This might be a good thing to add to any business web site setup, BTW.)

A better solution would be to only accept certain approved host headers at the server.

I currently use mod_rewrite to redirect any name but "www.example.net" (where example is the domain in question) to www.example.net:

RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www\.example\.net [NC]
RewriteRule ^/(.*) http://www.example.net/$1 [L,R]

This catches "example.net" (no "www"), the server's IP address, and any other alias the server answers to (mail, ftp, whatever).Modify this a little to redirect these to the correct name and redirect anything else to an error page. This is for Apache; I assume you can do something similar with other web servers.

As another poster pointed out, doing this in the server config eliminates the need to add code to all your pages.

What's an import and what is a domestic car?

[legojenn]

The Japanese companies build cars in North America (Honda Civic is made near Toronto). Some designed exclusively for North America (Camry is an example (or was an example)) . Japanese companies put their names on names on North American made vehicles (Mazda Trucks made by ford). American companies put their names on vehicles from Japanese companies (Geo Storm) and there are joint ventures (CAMI - GM/Suzuki in Ingersoll ON). North American vehicles can be made in either US, Canada or Mexico with American Canadian or Mexican or even foreign parts. It's so confusing. It's even more confusing when considering North America. Does crossing the Detroit River or whatever divides the US & Mexico make a difference? (Under NAFTA, it would be no.) Is a car from an American company made with Mexican built parts, assembled in Canada, a domestic vehicle or imported one?

Fix Or Repair Daily

[one9nine]

If Ford exerted as much effort on engineering and quailty control as it does on worthless lawsuits, maybe people who own Foci or Explorers wouldn't get a recall notice every two days.

All I have to say is...

[anthony_dipierro]

Slashdot Sucks :) Damn them for not suing me and making me famous!

Re: levels of understanding

[bobidus]

As a web user, it's your duty to learn the basics of its structure.

In what other ubiquitous technology is it the duty of the user to learn that technology's underlying framework? Is it a reader's duty to learn what a particular author's writing process is? Or learn bookbinding? Must a driver learn how the internal combustion engine or transmission works? To turn on a light, do you need to know how to wire the circuit?

To blindly make an assumption that an unprofessional sounding domain name linked to a company's competitor was initally created by the first company is foolish.

I would think that Ford's position is that they are paying for another person's foolishness.

Could this mistake still happen? Oh, absolutely! Should a company like Ford waste any time worrying about it? Nope!

Agreed, but for a different reason. How many people would have known about the "fuckgeneralmotors" address had it not been for this lawsuite? A trivial number. And not all of people would have assumed that Ford sponsored it. Had the company merely asked 2600 not to point to there site, the problem would have quietly disappeared. The only obvious advantage a court case has over this solution is that it announces to everyone who had mistakenly assumed that Ford was behind the address that it was not. Of course, only a fraction of this trivial number of people would ever learn about the court case. The disadvantage is that the company's actions show Ford to be a reflexively litigious corporation.

This post has been offered as a humble response to another's humble opinion.

fuckfjord.com

[FraggleMI]

haw haw haw

Still not good

[dh003i]

Yea yea, they won the lawsuit.

But Ford should have to reimburse them for attorney's fees and other damages.

As long as big companies can do this kind of crap without having to pay for it, its going to keep on happening.

What should happen is that Ford should be fined 10 times the damages for wasting 2600's time and the Court's time. That'll act as a deterrent for other companies who want to file frivolous law-suits.

Use the Google cache or The Anonymizer!

[goingware]

If your firewall blocks a site like 2600's, use a Google search like this one and then click one of Google's Cached links.

Google stores the text of pages (but not the graphics) when it spiders a site, and makes them available to you, in case, uh, "the site is down". Yeah, that's it.

It's pretty handy to use when someone has yanked a page that turned out to be embarrassing.

Unfortunately the page with the announcement at 2600 was just put up and is apparently not yet available in Google's cache, but will be at some point.

Another alternative is to use The Anonymizer. Here is 2600's announcement of Ford's surrender, which you should be able to read unless your firewall blocks the anonymizer too.

Ford-should-fuck-off.com

[dh003i]

Besides being outrageous, Ford's actions also violate the basic ideals of the internet.

Linking and domain-name-pointing is what makes the internet what it is. If I make a link --these assholes, and you don't like it, tough shit. Same thing with domain-name pointing.

If you have a problem with linking or domain-name pointing, get the fuck off the net.

But I am a web Designer

[oldstrat]

You are correct, even better they could have caught it at the server level without any web page coding.
They could have used it as a draw, not fought against it.
Then again, the second anyone involves a corperate lawyer, all creativity disappears preceeded by reason.

Re:Here's Why [wildly off-topic]

[MrFredBloggs]

Usually when you moved from a tape to a disk drive, your loading time was decreased...

Ford (mostly) owns Mazda?

[Cecil]

You learn something new every day. Is there any website that publicizes ownership of major companies like that? There are so many massive, global corporations these days that you never really know who you're buying from.

2600 is in the Wrong

[Pooua]

No one likes having words put into their mouths. In essence, this is what 2600 is doing by pointing their registered domain name at unsuspecting sites. They may think it's funny, but what would Ford think if GM sued them?

2600 argues that "no one in their right mind" would simply assume that Ford would put up such a domain name. They argue that "anyone in their right mind" would do a "whois" search to find out if Ford really put up the domain. Well, that's great that 2600 feels that comfortable with network technology. It's horrid that they have spent so much time in a small room together that they have forgotten that some people in this world have never heard of a "whois" search.

2600 has proven once again that they are a bunch of arogant punks. <p. BTW, don't ever buy a copy of their magazine; you would taint their philosophy. If you are a true 2600 sort of person, you have to find some way to make illegal copies of 2600 magazine. It's up to you if your solution is economically feasible.

Re:2600 is in the Wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

It's you who are in the wrong.. you.. you.. AOL person!!

Re:2600 is in the Wrong

[ryanwright]

They may think it's funny, but what would Ford think if GM sued them?
Uh, they'd likely laugh their collective asses off, considering the fact that it isn't Ford's domain. Even lawyers can do a basic whois lookup before filing a lawsuit. They do it all the time.

Re:2600 is in the Wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

You are flamebait, and you didn't even look at this issue from the correct standpoint. This has nothing to do with morals, but legality and the freedom that encompasses the ideal "America." Get a life.

j00 cant do anything without getting sued...

[stuuf]

Who made it legal t sue people about things they do on the internet??
Seriously, all of the fun of the internet has been killed now that anything you do comes with the danger of some huge corporation sueing your pants 0ff.
I think Ford is just p/o'd that the hackers and 2600 know more about the internet than they do, so they take the cowards legal way out, instead of registering www.fuck2600.com

Poo ua

[Anonymous Coward]

Pooo ua on you pal

Ford Management sucks

[Mustang Matt]

The company is kind of going down hill in some areas while progressing in others.

Their R&D staff seems to be on top of things, only hindered by management.

Every since Ford started offering "same-sex rights" the company has started going down the toilet. Soon they've be on the same level as GM.

I don't think so

[splorf]

I'd have to experiment to be sure, but I think the referer would be the page that linked to fuckgm.com, not fuckgm.com itself. That is, the referring page would be the one that was actually in the viewer's browser when the viewer clicked fuckgm.com. It wouldn't get changed by a simple redirect.

Re:I don't think so

[oldstrat]

The referer isn't important, it's the location fuckgm.com. My server knows it's not called fuckgm.com, and bounces it elsewhere.

The customer is always right.

[Alien Being]

A friend of mine sells used cars. An old lady put him in his place one day when he tried to sell her a Taurus. "Ford sucks, i'll never buy one of those."

She happily purchased the Mercury Sable that was parked next to it.

DeCSS in a domain

[TibbonZero]

I wonder if I could register a domain name that basically told the algorhytm for the DeCSS, wonder if I would be arrested or sued just for registering the domain...
Scary

Better Solution

[Wanker]

It might have been better just to add an entry to their HTTP config so that anyone sending a Host: header that was not one of their "accepted" domains gets sent to a "special" error page.

Probably would have been cheaper, too.

covering court costs cuts both ways

[gruntvald]

In the UK the "loser" pays the "winner" court costs. I used to think this was correct, but after seeing the US system in play, I don't think that. Having the risk of being liable for the other parties court costs discourages the little guy from filing suits. Yeah, it sucks that you are out of pocket, but imagine if you decided to sue McDonalds, for example, wouldn't you approach it with a different perception, if you knew you could end up with a bill for thousands of dollars of lawyers fees if you lost? Wouldn't you maybe think it just wasn't worth it, even if you thought you had a good case, but weren't sure?

Re:covering court costs cuts both ways

[dh003i]

When its a big rich corporation v. a small organization or individual, the corproation should ALWAYS have to reimburse the individual/organization its legal costs.

But private individual's or small organizations shouldn't necessarily have to reimburse the big corporation. If the corporation wants reimbursement, it should have bear a large burden of proof.

Troll Alert! - #582901 is a troll imposter

[Anonymous Coward]

Just in case anyone didn't know, the above account is a fraud

The real Seth Finkelstein has slashdot uid #90154

The name is also a subtle misspelling

My name is Seth Finkelstein, the troll is using the name Seth Finklestein

I did not post the above message in this thread. I have enough troubles without troll imposters.

Though this message is posted anonymously, I will attest to it and verify it if needed. Other message posted by similar-looking accounts, or not attested, are frauds. - Seth Finkelstein, uid#90154

Re: levels of understanding

[uglyduckling]

In what other ubiquitous technology is it the duty of the user to learn that technology's underlying framework? Is it a reader's duty to learn what a particular author's writing process is? Or learn bookbinding? Must a driver learn how the internal combustion engine or transmission works? To turn on a light, do you need to know how to wire the circuit?

They're not being asked to understand the underlying technology. They're being asked to understand the basic fundamentals. Anyone can create a link to any other page, for any reason. That's not like understanding the engine, that's like understanding what the turn signal means or what the brake pedal does, and is absolutely essential for any meaningful use of the web!

I would think that Ford's position is that they are paying for another person's foolishness.

But as has been stated several times - they were choosing to do this. They could have blocked http requests originating via that domain name - I'm not managing a large corporate website, but even with my basic knowledge of Apache I could do that in a matter of minutes. They choose not too - therefore their motivations must have lied elsewhere.

correction.

[Anonymous Coward]

I re-read the decision, it was a passing ention between lots of other cases.

Island Vo Vo

[Anonymous Coward]

Hahahaha, narftrek lives near St. George on Staten Island eh?

I wonder how many SI ./ ppl exist...
I used to live a few blocks from that place. The nieghborhood was ok mostly victorian homes that were falling apart or pristinely rennovated.

SI is the armpit of NYC though because they get jack squat when it comes to Public Transportation.

SI Ferry is a joke. They should finish that ST George tunnel they started in 1930's and give a fucking subway system.

piece (of pie)

Just making a statement..

[lionchild]

Perhaps we underestimate Ford in this case. Perhaps they knew they didn't have a case that would hold up, and merely sought to make it clear that they had nothing to do with the website pointer in question?

battle against nissan is not over yet.

[Anonymous Coward]

the battle against nissan is not over yet. fgm.com should point to nissan.com or nissandriven.com.

Whatever happened to the sore hands guy?

[Robin Lionheart]

Remember back a few years ago here on /. there was that guy who had the "sore Hands" sig, which was his link to his "I hate you" page for his former employer? Part of his downfall was his employer made use of his website against him and used the trademarked references as a slander argument.

What downfall? http://sorehands.com/ documented William Silverstein's legal battle to get worker's compensation from Microsystems/Learning Company/Mattel. He won a 6-figure settlement. They made a groundless libel counterclaim over his website, which was dismissed.

He's still taking them to court to get it dismissed with prejudice, so they cannot later decide to refile.