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AOL Threatens Peng, Demands Domain Handover
nutznboltz writes "According to the Peng project website AOL has sent them a cease-and-desist letter claiming that Peng, a GPLed software project is commerically exploiting AOL and has until Oct 15th to hand over the pengaol.com domain name." Update: 10/12 17:45 GMT by T : As several readers have pointed out, the domain name in question is actually pengaol.org, rather than pengaol.com.
To fix this, hand over pengaol.com and go register pengdialer.com, which is still available.
Will I retire or break 10K?
I didn't even know that existed. That solves all of the problems with AOL. I remember way back when I used AOL. It was an ok service provider. I didn't get busy signals like everyone else. The only gripe I ever had with AOL as in ISP was that in order to connect you had to run the bloated memory eating AOL software. Whereas for another dial up ISP I could use the super lite built in windows dial up networking. I don't want to have to use up all my RAM just to establish a connection. I always ended up minimizing the AOL software and using netscape or other programs.
PENG, which I didn't know about until just now, appears to be the ultimate solution. It makes AOL exactly the same as every other dial-up ISP. No bloated software to load, and it works in linux!
I can see why aol is pissed though. Because of PENG there is at least one person out there who isn't seeing their ads and is probably getting better transfer rates because there isn't a crapload of software hogging the cpu and bandwith(with ads). So that's money lost for AOL. Admittedly it isn't much money lost. I mean how many people use linux and AOL? Two totally seperate groups of people.
Hopefully it will encourage AOL to not force its users to load a giant ad-laden piece of software to connect, or at least to re-compile that bloated piece of software for linux.
Nah, I don't think they're that intelligent.
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I don't think this is big enough for EFF but...
Perhaps a legal fund of some sort could be set up. It'll certainly get 20 bucks from me.
-- Note: If you don't agree with me, don't bother replying. I won't read it.
I was just wondering, how can they respond to the letter if they only speak French?
Shouldn't the Lawyer send the letter in French?
"People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they seldom use." - Soren Kier
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Maybe, AOL is using this as a tactic to start talks about a settlement. The settlement could involve AOL acquiring peng like they did with Nullsoft, Netscape, ICQ, etc. Let someone else build the idea, and once it's proven, buy the company and incorporate it. This saves AOL the burden of spending on R&D, but gives them a new market.
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A lot of these are also DENIALS of AOLs petitions. This usually seems to be the case when WIPO finds that the allegedly infringing domain has is actually being used for something. Under the WIPO guidlines, AOLs attempt to take your domain should have been denied. Trademark infringement is actually another matter, though. WIPO considers possible infrigement, but infrigement alone shouldn't get the complaintant's request approved.
Just out of curiosity, did you ever end up going before WIPO? How did things pan out?
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