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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 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.
Be careful, though. Part of what you see for a given domain name depends on your ISP. For instance, if you're on Cox's cable Internet service and try going to "nonexistent.silverglass.org" (a name which definitively does not exist in the zonefile), you'll get a Web site filled with ads. A Web site I never created and have no part of. If you look at the URL bar, you'll see that Cox has resolved that name (that should've gotten an NXDOMAIN result) to the IP address of one of their servers and redirected you to one of their Web sites. Cox at least does a redirect, some ISPs simply serve up the page as if it came from the server name you used leaving you no clue that the domain owner isn't the one running that site.
It looks from my side like the site's just parked at GoDaddy, and what you're getting is the generic site GoDaddy serves up to every parked domain. The only ad is the button GoDaddy puts there to see about buying the domain, which is there whether the domain owner is interested in selling or not.
People buy real estate all the time in the hopes that it gains in value...why should domain names be treated specially?
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
Go ask Uzi Nissan what Nissan Motor Corporation did (is doing) to him over the name that he registered circa 1996. Uzi Nissan, having a computer shop, bought the domain name of his last name. Never mind that he _also_ had a car dealership called Nissan Motors in the 1970s, when Nissan Motor Corporation was still called Datsun.
It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.
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/
Nissan as a company was NEVER called Datsun. Datsun is a brand name, derived from an early model called Datson. Nissan is short for Nippon Sangyo. Which was the earlier company name. Nissan as an abbreviation was invented for the stock market (like AAPL for Apple)
well, NOW it's parked after Microsoft brought the lawyers out of leashes and sicked them on the domain owner(s)...
looking on archive.org it seems it used to have an active site on it, for example this snapshot:
http://web.archive.org/web/20110207201840/http://xboxone.com/
OR this one, from the YEAR 2003
http://web.archive.org/web/20031225193949/http://xboxone.com/
root@127.0.0.1
oops.. small case of "spoke too soon"/"foot in mouth", i realize this is from before the "domain created" date, so it must be the site maintained by the previous owners of the domain name, name that had expired by the time the current owner registered it.
Anyway, it's a proof that "XboxOne" was already used by someone else in the context of computer games related stuff even since the year 2002 and IMHO should have not been awarded as a registered trademark to MS...
root@127.0.0.1
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.
Uhhh...duh? For fucks sake there was already a system called the Xbox so guess what folks called the first one when the second one came out?
That is why I'm asking all of the Internet to join me in refusing to call the new Xbox anything other than Xbox S, S for Stupid God damned name that makes no damned sense, Xbox S for short. This bullshit was soooo thought up by the retarded marketing drones at MSFT that have taken over that company, nobody else would be that damned dumb as to name the THIRD system the Xbox...nope, not gonna say it, Xbox S.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
The first Xbox came out, it was named Xbox, and everyone called it Xbox.
The second Xbox came out, it was named Xbox 360, everyone called it xbox, and started calling the previous one Xbox 1 to differentiate since nobody wanted to say Xbox three sixty.
The third Xbox is announced, it is named Xbox One, everyone realizes that Microsoft should stop hiring brain dead monkeys for their naming division.
It was a fan site, they went down, squatter registered it, and now here we are.
You don't need permission to use trademarks, if they're not being used in a manner likely to confuse consumers. Company names are also trademarks, but Slashdot isn't going to get in trouble for including "Microsoft" in this article. Whether the use of the logo in this particular case is likely to cause people to think it was an official X-box site is another question, but one that is only likely to be answerable by a judge.
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face
Don't want to just burn karma, but thanks for bringing Uzi's story to my attention.
Here's the link for anyone who would like to read baout it:
http://www.nissan.com/Digest/The_Story.php
And yes, Uzi Nissan still holds Nissan.com (it cost him a lot of money though.).
BlameBillCosby.com