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Microsoft Files Dispute Against Current Owner of XboxOne.com
MojoKid writes "Microsoft might have one of the most talked-about products at the moment with the Xbox One, but would you believe it doesn't own the rights to the most obvious domain name to accompany it? Domain squatting is a real issue for companies about to launch a new product. If they register a domain before the official launch, people can find that and subsequently ruin the company's surprise. This particular case is different, however. The domain name wasn't registered just the other day. Instead, a UK resident registered the name XboxOne.com in December of 2011, long before Microsoft itself even likely had a definitive name for its upcoming console. So, what can a company do in this instance? File a dispute with the National Arbitration Forum, an ICANN-approved organization that specializes in dealing with these sorts of matters."
They's better change that ridiculous name instead.
Fork over some money, Micro$oft, if you want it that bad...
Question Reality, Find Your Own Truth...
If you had a sensible naming scheme, this kind of shit wouldn't happen. Either make a unique name, or go the tried an tested 1, 2, 3, 4, etc., method. Xbox -> Xbox 360 -> Xbox One -> Xbox e^(i*pi) is starting to piss people off.
First in is best dressed.
So, what can a company do in this instance?
Maybe come up with more original names for their products?
There should be an arbitrated resolution to these kinds of disputes which reflects both the rights of the copyright holders (i.e. Ron Paul and Microsoft), and the sweat equity put in by the siteholders (assuming there was some... if they were just squatting on the DNS name, then the ruling should be easy). The arbitrator shouldn't propose a windfall for the domain name holder, but instead a realistic settlement that would cover marketing and publicity costs of moving their work to a different site, including the costs of registering the new site.
looool
maybe they shouldn't have named the third edition of their product line after their first?
Fire the product manager who didn't check on the domain and secondly, cut the lucky boy a cheque.
Use a straw purchaser. Probably someone with a track record of domain squatting. So when people see them buying yet one more domain name, they'll think nothing of it.
Yes, that's going to cost money. But in the overall product marketing scheme, its a minor cost.
Have gnu, will travel.
Go ask any of the McDonalds, whose great-great-great-grandpa 200 years ago proudly called himself "Mr. McDonald", how he or she feels about the mcdonalds.com domain
Am I the only one that gets the GoDaddy.com spiel when I try to go to xboxone.com? Seems shenannigansy.
There is no value to preserve here. Go there. It is a standard godaddy site.
If the domain owner had actually been using the name (rather than just to show a default launch page) then I might have some sympathy for them. But those people who speculatively register thousands of domains just to extort money from legitimate users deserve to be sued.
Nobody should ever reward the bad practices of those douchebags. They are the equivalent of patent trolls.
At the moment, XboxOne.com isn't being used for anything, so it's in effect a squat.
You mean they don't have an active website. That doesn't mean the domain name isn't being used for anything. It has A and MX records. Even scanning the ports on the A records and finding nothing doesn't mean it's not being used. It may not respond to any except certain IP addresses.
Now I agree it's likely it's not being used for anything, but as the registrant of several domains which do not have websites associated with them (but DO have email and other services) I call nonsense (if not straight up libel) calling it "in effect a squat."
I checked website at xboxone.com -- it is an obvious squatter. Send him to hell along with patent trolls.
...it's not even in use. It's just the godaddy placeholder.
Normally, I tend to side with the 'little guy' like MikeRoweSoft - he was actually USING the domain.
In this case, the guy's just squatting. Give him some token fund for "good guess what we'd call it" like $1000 and give MS the domain.
-Styopa
I don't know why companies don't just buy the name in advance. They could just use a different register than they normally do, and private registration, don't move it to their normal name servers and people would have no idea who bought it. They could even buy up a few dozen fakes so people would still have no idea what the product will be called. Xboxzune.com xboxhd.com whatever
>So, what can a company do in this instance? .com. zone?
They use the DNS zone they already own to make a subdomain one.xbox.com. and not create hundred of records for their products in the
Even if the registration was legitimate, they still used a Microsoft trademark as a portion of the domain name. That is going to cause problems for the domain's owner even if the trademark XBox One didn't exist at the time of registration.
For what it's worth, I pulled up on archive.org and it was some sort of xbox fan site in the past. Depending upon the trail of registrations since then, it is doubtful that a domain squatter owns it.
C'mon guys, this guy just won the lottery.
I for one, wouldn't have guessed it'd be Xbox One, especially not 2 years ago. I Microsoft really wants this name, it's not difficult for them to pony up the dough. Even at 1.000.000$, for MS this would have been a good deal. Going the lawsuit way for someone as powerful as MS, is stupid, they're most likely just going to have haters against them etc.
On the other hand, I don't side with Cybersquatters or people who just purchase 10000 random domain names just because they want to prey on any-company-dot-com, but business is business, if you don't make it your own - it'll be someone else. That's the hard facts of life.
What this world is coming to - is for you and me to decide.
Isn't that the solution to the equation commonly used to model depletion of a finite resource ( say oil reserves )?
dQ(t)/Q(t)=Q(t)*(1-Q(t))
Or put another way, the rate with which you can deplete a resource is proportional to how much resource you have got times how much resource is left, where unity is all of it.
(The derivative of the depletion curve is the depletion rate curve and looks a lot like a gaussian bell curve, extending from negative infinity to positive infinity, peaking at 0.25, and having a total area under the curve of exactly 1; that is... all of it. )
I only wish more people understood the gravity of these equations.... ignoring their prophecy is going to be our undoing.
You impress me greatly by posting it.
I will post AC as I know this is completely offtopic, but I did want you to know there are others out there who have great respect for that little piece of math you just brought up.
anubi
I just bought xboxminusone.com -- wonder if they'll want that, too?
Any sufficiently advanced technology is insufficiently documented.
Just open up TLDs for registration.
A TLD should cost $1,000,000
xboxone.microsoft
my opinion similar situation to ronpaul.com, it was registered long before he retired and wanted his domain. He lost when he tried to take the legit established route to acquire the domain.
Microsoft should also lose this case.
But it won't Microsoft will of course win cause Corporations rule the world
This doesn't add up (not even to 'xboxthree.com', itself registered just 5 days ago). 'xboxone.com' has been registered less than 18 months, by someone other than Microsoft, yet MS has owned 'xboxtwo.com' for nearly eight years:
$ whois xboxone.com
Registered through: GoDaddy.com, LLC (http://www.godaddy.com)
Domain Name: XBOXONE.COM
Created on: 29-Dec-11
Expires on: 29-Dec-16
Last Updated on: 29-Dec-11
$ whois xboxtwo.com
Domain Name: xboxtwo.com
Created on..............: Sun, Sep 11, 2005
Expires on..............: Wed, Sep 11, 2013
Record last updated on..: Sat, Sep 08, 2012
Administrative Contact:
Microsoft Corporation
Domain Administrator
One Microsoft Way
Redmond, WA 98052
US
Phone: +1.4258828080
Email: domains@microsoft.com
$ whois slashdot.org
Created On:05-Oct-1997 04:00:00 UTC
Registrant ID:tuM6kJEQXujRSska
Admin ID:tuKBNSJC6uhbcDHm
Tech ID:tuDs9f0G6e3VfKZ2
$
xbox1.com is taken too.
People buy real estate all the time in the hopes that it gains in value...why should domain names be treated specially?
The guy registered a domain name *2* years ago, probably even before MS would look for a name for their upcoming console. This is just another (yet) case of a big company using its legal weight against the small people.
I've got better things to do tonight than die.
It's probably worth noting, XboxOne.com is way older than 2011, it's been around since the original xbox was released http://web.archive.org/web/20021115163519/http://www.xboxone.com/
If I go to xboxone.com I get a godaddy add saying I can buy it for $7.99...
Microsoft always does stuff like this, can't bother to search if a domain name is available.
I'm going to start an organization called ICANN, which is a shortening of "I CAN Nick any name I want" and sue ICANN for icann.org. They can change their flippin' name to ICANNT for all I care.
WHOIS and Google reveal that he owns a total of 5 domains. Sure, he isn't doing anything with them, but he isn't some faceless "domain squatting corporation" either.
The guy seems to have been the director of a bunch of companies, so he probably understands business. I don't blame him for trying to capitalize on his good fortune. Microsoft will try to use their army of lawyers to either get the domain for free or at a value far below what it is worth to them. I hope he stands up for himself and hires a good lawyer, rather than settling for a derisory sum.
First served.
I say Microsoft can offer them a lot of cash, but if they refuse, thats the breaks. If Microsoft wins this, then no companies name is safe if someone with more $ wants it.
If i company decides to create a new product with the same name as a domain i own it can take it away from me ?
WTF ???
I have a few domains, none of which have a website and still point to 123reg.co.uk holding page, I have no intention of building websites for them either, I purchased them solely for the email address and forwarders etc. What if the guy who owns it uses it as his primary email and has all his shizzle like fleabay, banking, paypal and other stuff on the domain? What a bummer if Microsoft win and he is left in limbo, even worse the microsoft webmonkey could even then obtain personal information via "forgot my password" shinanigans.
Just an aside, I happen to know the guy who long ago registered the name "Gateway.com" for his computer/telecommunication business. This was back when it was just a telecommunication term. There was a company who made computers and also liked the term, they called the company "Gateway 2000". Eventually they realized that the year 2000 was fast approaching and that they couldn't stop it and by 2001 their name would look pretty silly. So they changed the company name to Gateway. And then they went after him because he was using "their" domain. Their lawyers made his life miserable, and as far as I know he "settled" but never got anything for his property that was taken except an agreement of some donation to "charity".
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
The company my father worked at prior to retirement encountered this. Their name had been registered by some individual with the same last name as the company. So they approached him and offered him quite a bit, like 20,000 pounds (company was headquartered in the UK, and this guy lived in the UK) for the domain and his trouble moving to a new one. Guy said no. So, to court it went (this was prior to the resolution process via ICANN). The guy lost, and got nothing for it, as the company had a trademark on the name.
People can be really stupid when it comes to this. They think having a domain name that is something a company has should be the jackpot to quick riches, and will turn down reasonable offers. I remember an eBay auction I saw once for the domain "generalmills.cc" at a time when they already owned generalmills.com. The dipstick trying to sell it seemed to think that $10 million was a good opening bid.
So MS may well have contacted this guy and said "Hey you have a domain we'd like, we'll give you a couple grand for your trouble," and he replied "Nope, I want millions," so they are taking him to ICANN's arbitration. If that doesn't rule in their favour, it'll probably go to court as a trademark issue.
It was a fan site, they went down, squatter registered it, and now here we are.
They weren't using it before and buying up land on speculation that it will be worth more later is entirely legal.
Is the only thing wrong with it that a company wants it?
Trademark law is on MS's side, they'll win this. If the guy is lucky, it'll be in ICANN's arbitration and he'll just lose the name. If he's unlucky, it'll go to US courts as a trademark issue and he may owe MS lawyer fees when he loses (which he will).
This stuff isn't a case of "First guy to grab it gets to extort whatever they want." Trademark law doesn't work that way. If someone has a legit trademark on something they defend, they are going to get it.
So if you register a generic name that a company wants, ya that you can pretty much charge whatever for. However if you own a domain that is their trademark, they'll take that away from you, if they want it.
There ARE abandonment laws for real property, but those who push the idea of Intellectual Property being the same DO NOT WANT it to be *that* similar and fight ideas like squatters rights, public rights of way, zoning, inheritenace,abandonment laws or land value taxes which apply to real property to apply to IP.
But they STILL want to whine "They don't take your house off you after 25 years, do they???".
They shouldn't do anything else but offer to purchase it from the owner, rather than trying to assert their ownership of it now that they actually want it. It's mind-boggling that big companies like Microsoft can't figure out to decide on a name for their product and register domains and trademarks BEFORE actually finishing it.
Signature intentionally left blank.
You just entirely ignored it. You ignored it even though you QUOTED it. Ignored it and then *replied* with something that wasn't a response to that, but something completely unconnected.
Showing that you haven't got a case against the proposition.
Why is it OK to buy land speculatively, but not buy this sort of IP speculatively? NOTE: you can buy other forms of IP speculatively. Scripts for example.
So .com is only acceptable? They have used .ms before.
"MojoKid writes"?
You mean "HotHardware.com writes". The whole summary is taken verbatim from there.
Editors: give credit where credit's due.
If a summary is just a copy-paste of the first paragraph of a story from another site, mention that site and not the person alerting you to that site's story.
TFA does not justify this headline. TFA just mentions MS's options to get the domain name -- it does not state that MS has filed or will file a complaint, only that that is one possibility for MS.
I just hope they remember to also register the new console's unofficial name:
xbone.com
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
He owns the name, to bad, you lost. Pick a new name and move on or buy the name out from him.
Norton 360 (http://uk.norton.com/360/) is now Norton One (http://www.norton.com/One). Folks, I think we know where MS got their ideas. Not a marketing department but a copycat; I guess it's better than hiring meerkats, simples!
Yeah MS didn't have a name for the console 2 years ago but they were going to call it something. I'm sure there are thousands of other domains with Xbox in them this guy just got lucky that his name got picked. Squatting doesn't require that you know the product name beforehand just that you can get names cheap and hit on a right one every once and a while.
The TomTom One has been out for many years. The Formula One race is even older.
How about the Linksys iPhone? Cisco had a working product before Apple claimed the name.
Dear Microsoft, you have three problems with the Xbox One name. The first is that you have had two consoles preceding the one and most people can count. The second is that there are 7 billion plus people on this planet. Someone will always have thought of something as obvious as ONE before you. The third is with the word Xbox. Clicking the X box closes programs.
Just pay a few million and buy it.
I mean really, while I hate URL squatters, the fact that someone created a website that happened to coincide with a future product is not "in dispute".
The fact that Microsoft's Marketing department didn't spend more than a minute coming up with the new Xbox name is obvious.
I haven't thought of anything clever to put here, but then again most of you haven't either.
It's a sigmoid function. Similar to the Error function, or the one used for digital neurons in neural networks...
The company can pay the current owner whatever he wants for the domain, or the company can live without the domain name. The end.
Modern copyright is theft of culture from everyone and it retards the progress of the useful arts and sciences.
a friend of mine that works for a big domain registration company, but the name i just cant remember, anyway where they said "If they register a domain before the official launch, people can find that and subsequently ruin the company's surprise." this is very true, my friend would always have some kind of an idea when new products were coming out just cause these companies would buy their domains in advance. At the launch of xboxone, if i remember correctly my friend said Microsoft didnt even try to register the domains until that day, during the event. They were just asking for trouble at that point
ICANN will just take this guy's domain. Just watch. Elitists always win. Power and money rules the day.
Somebody register "xboxonesucks.com." If it's anything like the early 360 there will be plenty of feedback for it shortly after launch...
I love the way registrars & ICANN encourages people to park and sell domains and then if a big guy comes along they just hand 'em over. You suppose He's going to get a refund of all his various fees (with interest)?
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
some kind of "you automatically lose the argument if the WHOIS returns a hit" rule, sort of like Godwin's Law.
And that domain appears to be for sale by owner through NameSeek.
to me game consoles might as well not exist at all. PCs have better graphics, and better controls. Also, most games today suck, being rehashes of previous games. And now we have the game companies trying to get in on the profits on used games (which they are not entitled to). They charge far too much for the console games in the first place.
(damn'd: it mid-2013 already and /. still doesn't support Unicode!)
It's just that most of the interesting (for you) code points and HTML entities aren't on the whitelist. Slashdot had a problem a few years back with vandals who would use directionality override code points to break the layout and spoof a comment's score. I explained it before.
The difference here with the guy and his McDonalds comment being obviously MS made the Xbox name. This UK fellow has no right to use their companies trademark in his domain name and there shouldn't even be a case. Xbox is a registered trademark of MS, the one doesn't matter.
When Vista was released I tried Vista.com and it was a very established data business, totally unrelated
to Microsoft. MS walked all over this domain name, I thought ah these poor people. I checked on the site
from time to time, the business model changed over the years to one of working with computer hardware.
Never once did they have a redirect to Microsoft due those coming to the wrong site which impressed me
as them never letting MS change their operation - yet vista.com does redirects to vistaprint.com now.
This XboxOne is MS's fault for not checking first before committing, get over it MS you failed again.
You're all wrong. It's not XboxOne.com. It's XboxOnE.com, a website about what Xbox is like while high on Ecstacy.
Oh for fuck's sake... Just pay the domain owner. There's no need to call the cybersquatting arbitration wahmbulance.
It's not like the guy registered that domain name going "I bet you that in like two years they're going to go completely insane and name the next console the Xbox One! Man, I'm gonna be RICH!"
Not everything in life needs to be settled with lawyers.
Friend: "The NIC is misconfigured..." Me: "No prob, I'll just telnet in and fix it." *Silence*
Just because someone owns a domain name doesn't mean they are using it for WWW. I know many folks who use domains for the email or their FTP or for their home stuff. WWW isn't the only interface to a TLD. It also doesn't HAVE to be for public consumption.
There was a huge stink back in the early 2000s, when Sting attempted to seize sting.com, a website that had been the front end from a success pest control business for a few years. The funny part was, the guy was more than willing to sell the name to Sting, but Sting never even approached him with an offer. He simply tried to take it to court.
I think it's fascinating that people think the only use for a domain name is for web content.
It's perfectly possible to register a domain name solely for use as an e-mail address, and in fact I have a couple of domains I use this way. I'm not saying it's what's going on here, but just because you see a parked domain page when you type it into a browser, doesn't mean it's not used.
what's funny is the domain appraisal is only $350 for xboxone.com
Given how big they are, they should have had some of their subsidiary minion companies squatted on several thousand options long beforehand. Then just paid the minion for their 'service' when the name became an 'official' M$ product. Just makes sense. But obviously not to the bean counters.
They could probably try checking the domain is free before naming their flagship product. Oh, and they could also have not named the Xbox 3 'Xbox One'.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubbert_peak_theory#Hubbert_curve
XboxOne.com just points to a parking page. I don't think MS will have any trouble winning this one.
/steve
Wow what a concept - simple solution! Let's make a big deal out of nothing why don't we?
This is nothing new. M$ has been convicted of software piracy in the past. Now, they will pay off anyone they can to take away the domain that one of their own fanboys set up years ago. I have seen the site before it was disabled. It was a site for XBox gamers that reviewed the games and game systems and gave advice. Now, all this user gets is the shaft.
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