Posted by
ryuzaki0
on from the next-they-will-want-yaha dept.
Ben writes "In the never-ending "big corporation wants little guy's domain" saga Yahoo! has threatened legal action against YaHooka, a marijuana information site, unless they hand over all yahooka.* domains. The skinny is here. I found this on bud.com. "
84 comments
Has it been slash doted?
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Anonymous Coward
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Or is my school banning Yahooka? Hmm.. I wouldn't put it past them..
Real Nice.
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Anonymous Coward
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How nice that companies that grew big because of the free and open nature of the internet are now turning around and suing members of the internet community.
Yahoo, we remember when you were just a pissant little web site. Stick a nail in your swelled heads and deflate your egos some.
We should start blacklisting sites over this nonsense.
McRemembering Gnuhoo
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Anonymous Coward
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Mebbe they could rename it "McHooka" and let Mickydeester (kiss my keyster) sue them also.
But the thing I really think is that when NewHoo was Gnuhoo everyone thought it was a terrible thing for the Gnuhoo folks to do, but here the tables are turned, and it's the big bad corporation coming down hard on the good guys, they should take a joke already! You can't have it both ways, but that's what you want. And that sucks. I imagine someone will point out some lame difference that stretches the point till it snaps.
The Cynic
They legally HAVE to defend their trademark.
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Anonymous Coward
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Yahoo is legally bound to defend their trademark, otherwise they lose it. I thought the majority of/. readers would have been clued into this side of trademark laws because of the whole Linux trademark fiasco. Guess not.
Yet Linus won't enforce his TM on linux.com
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Anonymous Coward
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Yet Linus won't enforce his TM on linux.com,.net. or.org. He really should.
This is crap...I sent yahoo a message
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Anonymous Coward
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It may not make a difference, but I recommended yahoo a lot to friends and family members that were first using the internet. This just burns me up that yahoo has made so much money off of myself and people like me using their web site--and is now using that money to pay high priced lawyers (who I hate) to attack small sites that obviously don't have the resources to defend themselves.
Another example of mega-corps with money taking away individual freedom... Knowing Yahoo's roots on the internet(and therefore free speach/exchange of information) I didn't think yahoo would ever do this type of thing. I guess I was naive.
Sitting on the Fence
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Anonymous Coward
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I can see Yahoo's side in this arguement...its a case of tradename infringement essentially....
Yahoo has developed a name which has a certain amount of Goodwill amoung the internet community( please only comment to this statement if you actually know what goodwill is ) and I'm sure quite rightfully they feel that yahooka set up their name to spunge some of the publicity and "goodwill" from yahoo... whether they did or not...
This type of action is extremely common, small less than ethical companies name themselves closely to large corporations to try and grow their businesses based on name recognition that they dont deserve.
On the otherside unfortunately, big companies are more and more so trying to use their weight to push small companies around because of the cost of litigation. Without trying to inflame here the US is horrible for this, every other countires government organizations that deal with exporting warn home grwn companies about the dangers of setting up shop in the US and that is that you will get sued for everything and anything and people will try to starve you via court costs.... In fact I read somewhere that "apparently" the US has 75% of all registered practicing lawyers on the planet...... No wonder crap like this happens.....
I'm sure this situation could probably be arbitrated easily without the need for bullying etc by yahoo and there gaggle of fear mongers....
In fact probably a very simple solution would be to have Yahooka have a banner on their main page stating that they are in no way associsted with Yahoo and Yahoo could do the same.... but this is comprise and it seems that the lawyers dont make any money that way...
Personal Boycott of Yahoo
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Anonymous Coward
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Wow, big deal, I can hear they're stock price falling now.
Thoughts on These names...
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Anonymous Coward
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These names are not easy to come up with and funny because they make fun of yahoo.com its because they use the word yahoo. Its really stupid that some company can trademark a coman english word/phrase/anything. Its like someone taking the domain "you". So then they could take away yousuck.com... Its such BS. I think domains should be a first come first served.
Jewhoo
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Anonymous Coward
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Next thing you know, they'll be going after Jewhoo
This reminds me...
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Anonymous Coward
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This reminds me of a case here in Denmark, where McAllen, a guy driving a hot-dog stand, was sued by McDonalds. He won in the end (and sure got a lot of publicity:)
Yahooka
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Anonymous Coward
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...what, so people can copyright HTML now, basic table layouts, et al?
Sure they can. Source code is copyrighted all the time.
Code is one thing... HTML scripting, though, I can hardly see how...
How is HTML source (which is rendered into what you see in your browser) different from C (or whatever language) source (which is rendered, or compiled, into an executable program)? Either way it still represents the instructions to create a finished product.
But this isn't the issue with Yahooka. Yahoo isn't claiming copyright infringement, only trademark infringement. There is a difference.
corporate whore
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Anonymous Coward
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fuck yahoo and its corporate whores concerned solely with pumping its "good brand name" penis. no wonder why wall st. likes its stock so much. they've proven their judeo-christian sanitation.
But it LOOKs like Yahoo!
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Anonymous Coward
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Ok, Go to the YaHooka! Homepage, and tell me that that heading listing doesn't look exactly tike the Heading listing on Yahoo!. Yahoo! Was the fist site to do it that way, and they're probably more pissed off about the page format then the domain. But they probably only have a legal case about the domain. They're screwed. But it's they're own fault.
Email abuse@yahoo.com
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Anonymous Coward
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Perhaps we should all send our thoughts to abuse@yahoo.com. This company needs a lesson in market perceptions.
Real Nice.
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Anonymous Coward
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Anyone remember way back when they were in Stanford and their web page would have a little graphical icon for each category and take forever to load?
blaklisting...brilliant...
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Anonymous Coward
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does anyone know if www.bully.com is registered... someone should grab it and make a site dedicated to revealing the corporate bullies on the net so we could all boycott them...I always make sure to send an e-mail to anyone I can find at a site when they pull crap like this to let them know I for one will be taking my browsing elsewhere....
then they'd feel the wrath of us jews..
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Anonymous Coward
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Yep, and it's said you control everything. Well, thats ok, so far your religion hasn't created an Inquisition, nor a Hitler, nor a Martin Luther. I'd rather leave the world to be run by Judaism than Christianity, but then I start to read the Washington Report..
Oh well, all religions suck!:)
So can i name my new company 'A'...
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Anonymous Coward
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Then sue everyone whose domain names start with the letter a? Its the same thing, anything starting with a would be a derivative of my new company's trademark...
this isn't defense, it's stupid
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Anonymous Coward
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There's a difference between defending against actual dilutions of one's trademark, and suing everybody who has a domain name similar to theirs regardless of what's on the site. If yahooka.com stated/implied any affiliation with yahoo.com, then Yahoo would have a case. If they provided a similar service, Yahoo would have a case. But neither is true. There's no way someone is going to confuse the two; it's not even like yahooka is some typo someone would make trying to get to Yahoo. There is no way the two sites are possibly going to be confused, or associated with each other. Yahoo is just hoping to intimidate these guys, and win through intimidation what they wouldn't be able to win in court.
Complaint to Yahoo! at this address
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Anonymous Coward
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Send mail to
mailto:copyright@yahoo-inc.com
and tell them what you think.
Lets go back to dot quads
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Anonymous Coward
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I think to be perfectly fair to businesses, we should do away with DNS completely and go back to dot quads.
It's the LOGO...
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Anonymous Coward
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that, I'll surmise, YaHoo! does not like. They ARE almost identical.
YaHooka should drop the ! and change their LOGO, perhaps with a hooka form, and they'll be set.
Porsche is suing everyone!
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Anonymous Coward
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See http://www.wired.com/news/news/politics/story/17 316.html
What would Jonothan Swift think?
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Anonymous Coward
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After all, it was he, NOT the people at Yahoo! who invented the word (and the yahoos in his Gulliver's Travels epitomized all of humanities bad qualities). Hmm...
We copywrite English words all the time!
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Anonymous Coward
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so why not html?
Get Wise!
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Anonymous Coward
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LEGALIZE!!!
Trademarks are unique only to the type of bussines
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Anonymous Coward
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*sigh*
Yahoo is an internet portal Yahooka provides information about softdrugs
There simply cannot be any confusion between the two.
(Wether yahoo might consider using their trademark of soft-drugs information in the future is irrelevant, and wether some people are too stupid to see the distrinction is irrelevant as well)
- Erwin
Yahooligans
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Anonymous Coward
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Hm. Reminds me of the conflict about AJAX.ORG. After a huge write-in campaign, that case was dropped. I sent my letter of boycott to Colgate-Palmolive as did many others, and it seemed to have worked (although they would not admit to THAT being the reason).
Now we have a site that is suffering under much the same problem. There is NO way anyone would possibly confuse YaHooka with Yahoo.. much the same way ajax.org could not be confused with a commercial Colgate-Palmolive oriented site.. however it seems that somebody at Yahoo has gotten a hair up their butt about all of this.
Here's a guess:
Yahoo Bigshot: What?! There's a Marajuana site that has the name YaHooka?!?!?! *looks at the site* Jesus Christ! That'll make us look like idiots! We're a public corporation and this sort of thing is the type of issue that can dilute our stock value! Send this letter to the legal department!
And so it begins. Paranoia breeds idiocy. Even though YaHooka has ben around for awhile, and has NEVER been confused with Yahoo, the person(s) involved in this revelation decided that because this was a DRUG site, it was abhorrent to their sensibilities and should be taken down by any means necessary. The problem I see is that they will get less sympathy from The Powers That Be (tm) because of their orientation.
I boycotted Yahoo a long time ago when I realized it had become a mouthpiece for Corporate interests. They have no qualms about de-indexing something for any reason, or not indexing something because it doesn't fit in with their 'format'.. invisibly, so that the user has NO idea that this information IS out there, but Yahoo blocks it from their engine. Mind you, someone with a clue will know this.. which is why I don't use Yahoo. I always recommend MetaCrawler. (And please, if anyone out there knows Bad Things about MetaCrawler, let me know.. but they look good)
So I say, good luck to YaHooka. I think they will win this.. assuming that Yahoo doesn't throw a million dollars of lawyers at them. They may not be able to afford to compete.
Apparently YaHookA is a CIA front
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Anonymous Coward
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Allegedly this Yahooka site are a bunch of spammers and are so lame they can't even think up two different lines of spam.
despite their claimed to be non-profit, this allegedly is a lie and they are spamming for marijuana seeds companies, en masse.
read this: http://www.yahooka.com/seeds.htm
then read this: http://members.tripod.com/~spookbusters/
click on the article right at the top of the spookbusters website
yahooKA is the Feds alright. they want your e-mail address as well
How many FED spammers can fit on one board?
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Anonymous Coward
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Yeah, "may confuse". Sure. confuses lawyers. So confuse they're actually braindead. Shakespeare was right: "First we should kill all lawyers".
-- "The more prohibitions there are, The poorer the people will be"
-- Lao Tse
This kind of shit should be outlawed...
by
Wakko+Warner
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Software patents too for that matter, but I'd like to see trademark law totally overhauled first, so baseless cases like this aren't even allowed to make it to court.
- A.P. --
"One World, One Web, One Program" - Microsoft Promotional Ad
-- "Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
I don't get these cases, it's not like i can sue my friend for his house if i want it for no reason. They don't make sense. Just a stupid corporation thinking they can do anything.. bullshit.
The pricing structure is as follows: 2 letter.COM domains start at $7,500.00 USD 3 letter.COM domains start at [DEL: $3,000:DEL] Holiday sale $2,000.00 USD .... it just goes on...man this crap is disgusting. I think there needs to be a new rule on domains. Any domains found to be registered SOLELY for the purpose of "placeholding" for the purpose of sale at higher prices (hmm perhaps call it scalping) should be revoked immediatly with NO refund of fees. (This would not stop a company from reserving registering a domain they arn't using yet if it is for their own use/ or their trade mark)
hmm you know...that does sound like a good idea. Who is controlling domains these days (like .COM)? I think I have a suggestion:)
The Corporation is not your friend.
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gavinhall
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Posted by antivert:
Indeed. We may find a corporation useful, or want services it may provide.. but a corporation is only a friend to money. Never, *ever* make the mistake of assuming a corporation has your best interests at heart. It's very rarely so.
NEVER MIND THE BIG HEMP LEAVES ON THE PAGE
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gavinhall
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Posted by antivert:
And the banner that says "The Guide to Marijuana on the Internet".
Also.. how many ways are there to categorize that data? And.. if the format of the page were the *only* problem with it, they'd be going after snap.com, lycos.com, altavista.com, etc.
I've been using Yahoo since it's earliest days, and have a good friend who was one of their first employees. But they've gone off the deep end. YaHooka is an obvious parody, and the Supreme Court of the United States has clearly stated that parody has a special, protected place in a democracy. As of this moment, I am no longer using Yahoo...until the apologize to YaHooka.
Imagine yourself being wronged by some large company with deep pockets for lawyers. Let's say that for whatever reason, you know you are right, but you aren't 100% convinced you can prove it in court. Say for example, you are 90% convinced you would win. In a "loser pays" system, that small 10% chance that you might lose is going to scare you away from the case, because *you* can't afford to pay for *their* lawyers, while *they* would have no problem paying for *your* lawyers.
Cases would be decided out of court by FUD. If you have even a glimmer of doubt about the likelyhood of winning, you would never want to set foot in the courtroom.
--
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
How similar does a word have to be?
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DunbarTheInept
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If companies can sue just because you are using a similar name to their name, then where does the dividing line lay?
How close do two words have to be for it to be an infringement? Do they have to prove intent as well - so an accidentally similar name would not be a suitable cause for a case? These questions must be answered if the courts are going to allow this kind of thing to continue.
If these questions are inherently unanswerable, then the courts should not be taking these cases at all.
--
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
I realise that Yahoo must defend their trademark, but they can very well do so without sending a gimmee gimmee or we squash you like a bug letter.
For example, they could try being POLITE and they could request that the party agree not to dilute the trademark (including defining what that means) WITHOUT threats.
I'm sorry, but "yahooka" has nothing whatsoever to do with search engines nor does it even come close to sounding like "yahoo" even phonetically or otherwise.
As far as I understand it, trademark law requires the holder to take legal steps necessary to defend a granted trademark. If other organizations begin using your trademark to the point where it becomes diluted, your rights to that trademark are substantially diminished.
If you don't show that you're taking steps to defend your trademark, you lose it.
I do agree that in this case, "Yahooka" and "Yahoo" are different enough that it's unlikely Yahoo will win a real court case, unless Yahooka simply relents under pressure.
Though I'm starting to get kind of annoyed by all of the lawyer bashing going on here. Most of the time, these lawyers are following instructions given to them by their boss. Something like: "Hey, this marijuana site is using a domain that looks like ours. Stop them." While an ethical lawyer might object and say there's no real case here, they're still employees of the company, serving "the company's" will. If all lawyers suddenly became compassionate, unwilling to hurt the "little guy", allowing anyone to have a field day with their company's trademarks, what do you think would happen? They would get taken advantage of. "Little guys" would step up, take advantage of that "kindness" and profit from The Company's work. Companies like this HAVE to be a little overprotective, because, let's face it, if they're winning every single case in their efforts to protect their trademarks, perhaps they could be doing a little more? The fact that they take on cases and lose a manageable percentage tells me that they're working right on the line, and doing everything they can to ensure their company's wellbeing. If they were to lose a significant number, then I would say they're being a bit overprotective and overzealous. That line between winning and losing is set by the judicial system and their interpretation of the legislation. If you have a complaint there, take it up with those branches of the government.
So when cases like this come up, and you think "damn they're picking on the Little Guy again," try and look at it from the company's point of view. Perhaps write them a letter or an e-mail and ask for their side of the story. Suggest to them any alternatives you can think of. If nothing else, tell them you hate them and will never use their product if they continue to push the issue. (This can work!) If, after they respond (assuming they do) you still think the whole situation sucks, don't be so quick to blame all of the Evil Lawyers and stick it where it belongs: The Company. Now, if the evil company actually WINS the case, and you STILL think it sucks despite the judge's reasoning behind his ruling, that's when you go complaining to your legislature.
Will you still think all lawyers suck when your child is hit by a car and you're forced to sue for damages? Lawyers are working for their clients. They aren't saying, "Hey, man, you can easily double the amount of money you're asking.. let's stick 'em where it hurts!"
perhaps -- but none that I've dealt with
by
Fastolfe
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As for lawyers not saying "you can make more, stick 'em where it hurts", they do exactly that. I have known several people that hired lawyers for various reasons after being in some sort of accident, and without exception they were advised by their lawyers to exaggerate the extent of their injuries (or in one case to claim one that didn't exist) for the purposes of a larger settlement. Note that I have no more respect for the people who followed this advice than I do for the attorneys themselves, but the general consensus among them was that this is normal procedure and everyone accepts it as such.
Did the lawyer just volunteer that information, or did the client ask them how they could get the most possible money out of it?
The two lawyers I've dealt with were relatively honest and fair about things... If sickens me to think that this practice is considered normal procedure. If my lawyer started telling me all these ways to cheat my way into getting more money out of a case, I really don't think I would want to take advantage of that. In fact, I'm tempted to say now that I would fire a lawyer who behaved like that.
I just think that's very unethical.
To address this, the school instituted a program whereby if the student would sign a contract that said they would only do certain types of work (public defender, non-profit orgs, etc) and limit their income to $35,000 per year for the first x number of years after graduation (it was either 3 or 5), the school would give them their education for free. Note that this was all inclusive - tuition, board, etc. In the two years the program had been in effect (and all incoming students are made the offer) not one single person had signed on. Not one.
That just seems insane to me. I think I could live relatively comfortably on 35k/year. Free tuition? I would certainly want to take advantage of that.
Maybe there's something else in the plan that's making the offer less appealing?
Why didn't they register the domain name themselves? If they really wanted to protect their interests, they should have registered every domain name which they thought could be seized--otherwise it's horribly unfair. "Oh, so you want it, eh? Well, too bad, I didn't want it before, but I want it now, and I get it. muhahahah!"
I don't think they have a chance at a dilution argument. The services provided by Yahoo! and YaHooka aren't similar enough.
Of course, the problem is, Yahoo! doesn't have to be right. They just have to be more able to afford court costs than the little guy. This is where our legal system royally sucks.
After running ML.ORG for so long I know a good deal about the whole domain name issue. There is no trademark dilution here, as someone mentioned. Yahoo has no need to 'defend' their trademark rights in this case since there is no dilution. They went after this company since they didn't like what they were saying.
There is also the situation that trademarks are based by 'class' -- ie you can not trademark a word (few exceptions, like made up words) for EVERYTHING. LIke 'yahoocake.com' which obviously is not in the same business as 'yahoo.com'. Going down that argument, yahooka.com is a different class than yahoo.com. Legally, they are ok.
Of course, as others have pointed out, it's all about money. Deeper pockets. I too, have sent a letter to Yahoo, telling them that I've been a user since akebono.cs.stanford.edu days, and if they don't quit their stupid lawsuit, they can be sure I will never visit their site again.
Hard to see Yahoo having a legal case... not that they'd inherently need one in court against someone who can't afford to defend themselves in court.
some nameserver mess in the way, here's the IP:
by
aqua
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(sorry about wordwrap. http://209.54.9.11/)
% dig a www.yahooka.com @209.54.6.21
; > DiG 2.2 > a www.yahooka.com @209.54.6.21 ; (1 server found) ;; res options: init recurs defnam dnsrch ;; got answer: ;; ->>HEADER;; flags: qr aa rd ra; Ques: 1, Ans: 1, Auth: 0, Addit: 0 ;; QUESTIONS: ;; www.yahooka.com, type = A, class = IN
;; ANSWERS: www.yahooka.com. 3600 A 209.54.9.11
There's a simple way to "fix" Yahoo
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ZioPino
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Companies like Yahoo live on one single thing only: Net traffic. It's very easy to show Yahoo a token of our consideration: from today I remove every link I have to Yahoo and I'm not going to use their web site for the time being.
I have no interest in marijuana but this kind of actions is ridicolous and has to be punished. Avoid Yahoo and ask your friends to do the same.
You think for a moment that lawyers would support the "little guy"??? If your paycheck depended on you getting 10% of $1,000,000 or 10% of nothin - what would you do? The problem is the system. It rewards the folks who are most able to buy justice. Damn, I should have gone to law school, I thought there was honor in learning a trade.
-- dreaded scurrilous bit-twiddler from Oklahoma
Here's a lnk to some legal opinion on domain names
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Booker
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Let YAHOO! Know How You Feel!
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VinceV
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Like most others here, I think this sucks. There is obviously no chance of anyone confusing Yahoo with YaHooka. I say we let Yahoo know that we don't like this. Here's a list of Yahoo's executives and the URL where I found it. Their email addresses are not listed, but if I find them I'll post them here. There are a couple of feedback forms on their site, too. I've also looked up the companies phone number and the snail mail address, for those who figure their "two cents worth" is worth 32 cents or more.
Street Address Yahoo! Inc. 3420 Central Expressway, 2nd Floor Santa Clara, CA 95051 Phone (408) 731-3300 Fax (408) 731-3301
Office Hours 8:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. PST
Jerry Yang - Chief Yahoo! and Director David Filo - Chief Yahoo! Tim Koogle - President and Chief Executive Officer Jeffrey Mallett - Chief Operating Officer John Place - General Counsel Anil Singh - Senior Vice President of Sales Karen Edwards - Vice President, Brand Marketing Gary Valenzuela - Senior V.P. of Finance & Administration and Chief Financial Officer Farzad Nazem - Senior V.P. of Product Development & Operations, Chief Technical Officer James Nelson - Vice President, Finance Timothy Brady - Vice President, Production Heather Killen - Vice President, International Geoff Ralston - Vice President, Development and Communciations Ellen Siminoff - Vice President, Business Development Srinija Srinivasan - Vice President, Editor in Chief Arthur Kern - Director Michael Moritz - Director Eric Hippeau - Director
Another example of a Big Company trying to scare the little guy. Did anyone else notice they only gave Yahooka 4 days to respond? That in itself is not right. I thought legally, they had 30 days to respond. Does anyone know?
-- I don't want to sell anything, buy anything, or process anything. I don't want to sell anything bought or processed...
Like yahoo or not, domain squatting has made a mess of the web. its not fair that someone can go out and buy up every conceivable permutation of a company's brand name and then blackmail them to get it back.
There are motions in place now to stop this retarded practice:
SOP in case of real threat
by
incubus
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They can "vigilantly defend their trademark" without these kind of scare tactics. No court would ever force yahooka to give their domain to yahoo.. they might force them to stop using it.. but it in no way *belongs* to Yahoo. A simple 'Please put this disclaimer and acknowledge in your site that this is not associated with yahoo.com' would have been just fine.
But no, they have to sick the attack dogs on em... so much for me using yahoo.
Ma! I want that domain name, NOW!
by
robs
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Pretty pathetic that Yahoo! (TM) has to go to court to get their grubby little hands on a domain name. Can't they just buy them out like every other greedy corporation that is out there would do?
I don't think this is so much a trademark issue as it is one to get something for next to nothing. I mean, sure it will cost them money for their lawyers, and the PR department will have to work overtime to make up for the scene they created. Oh well, that's big business for you...
By the way, how could they trademark a name that I use for my..... um, nevermind!
Although I think this should have been done in a more friendly way, I can see Yahoo's side. If you visit the yahooka site, it's a blatant ripoff of the Yahoo directory's basic look and feel.
I don't think they should be required to turn over the domain name, but I would feel a lot better about them if they were a little more original.
D
My involvement in a very similar situation
by
daviddennis
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I almost forgot that I have a comparable experience to mention.
A company called Metro Global owns the domain amazingsex.com. They have also used the name "amazing" in their pornography production for some time.
They gave me a ring, suggesting that my name interfered with their trademark, and suggesting that some kind of arrangement be made. I took a look at their web site, and was appalled - it's just a horrible, crummy place. So naturally I was in no mood to sell them amazing.com . They threatened to sic lawyers on me, and they proposed to meet me for a bite to eat to negotiate.
I eventually agreed, and after some thought sent them a lengthly memo regarding my feelings about their web site. Now, understand, I have nothing against sex sites, but I have plenty against awful sex sites like the aforementioned amazingsex. I also visited their LA headquarters and quite visibly took some digital photographs with my Canon XL1. Finally, I bought a couple of their videos, which are not nearly as bad as their web site, but still below the standards I'd like to see if I sold my domain. I quite loudly mentioned within the stores that I was buying the videos because of their attempt to grab my domain name. I got nothing but befuddled sympathy from the video store owners.
In the end, they melted away. I don't think they appreciated my suggestions about the quality of their web site!
I don't think these tactics would work with Yahoo, but they might help others involved in a similar dispute.
D
They may have changed their site....
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daviddennis
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They haven't changed their site much, as far as I can tell.
It wasn't the tameness that bothered me - it was the horrible quality and tacky feel of what was on offer.
I never liked the chocolate drink (now that seems like a real trademark issue seeing as how there is no ! on domain names) and I never liked the web site.
I guess yahooka.com could always get the source for slashdot, change their domain name, and launch slashpot.org.....as long as rob doesn't sue them that is:)
One of the best arguments that could be used to support their main cause (Marijuana use that is) is the fact that their response to this was a lot more lucid and concise than the initial message appears after you've looked at both sites. The first thing that occurs to me to ask when I see that lawsuit is "What were the Yahoo people smoking?" Evidently it wasn't Marijuana...
Personal Boycott of Yahoo
by
FreeUser
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I am removing all links and references on my homepage to Yahoo, and will find another source for all of the services I, until today, used Yahoo for. I suggest anyone else who feels strongly that this action is inappropriate do the same.
So, in other words, we should meekly accept any behavior we find reprehensible simply because it is common?
This action goes way beyond "defending" their trademark -- they are using the American justice system, and indirectly my tax dollars, to intimidate a small site for the inexcusable crime of making a parody of their name. They don't have a case, and if this site were owned by an entity with significant capital, they would not be persuing this. This is intimidation under the guise of justice, pure and simple. And yes, if this becomes more and more common, I will be changing links more and more often. As often as is necessary to avoid supporting, even indirectly, corporations which feel this kind of behavior is appropriate. And BTW, I do not limit my displeasure to removing links. I also remove any business relationship of any kind to companies which I deem unethical. In other words, I put my money where my mouth is. If more of us did so, this kind of thing would be growing less, rather than more, common.
Your erronious assumption is that all, or even most, corporations vindictively persue anyone who uses a word or phrase slightly similar to their trademark. In addition, you erroniously assume Yahoo's action is a "defense" of their trademark, rather than an unwarrented attack on a little guy, who is exercising their constitutional right to parodize, which right has been confirmed time and time again in courts of law throughout the country. This attempt at intimidation is clearly financial, with Yahoo hoping that this particular "little guy" won't be able to afford to defend their rights under the law. Most companies do not engage in this sort of vindictive behavior, though of course if we all subscribe to the cynical apathy you espouse that will undoubtably change.
What about that "newhoo" site. Why aren't they suing them? (I think it is owned by Netscape aka AOL) Maybe they don't care as much about sites that not many people visit.
There are obviously too many lawyers in this country. This is one of the most ridiculous lawsuits I've ever heard of (not that I follow law very closely). A simple solution would be to move the server to another country, but that's probably not an option. It seems to me that if Yahoo! is really worried about this destroying their public images they can deal with it in the same way that W. R. Grace did with A Civil Action, a book that I had to read as a first year Engineering student at UVA for the fall of '97 (actually they dealt with an actual lawsuit, the book was based on this). Anyway in this book the company and one other are accused of polluting the town of Woburn's (a town in Mass.) water supply and raising the instance of leukemia. After a while the EPA relased a report saying that there was no way that W. R. Grace could have done anything to cause this. However there is still a movie that bears that name that is probably pretty bad for W. R. Grace's image. The put up a website devoted to debunk rumors of their actions.
I'm not saying that YaHooka has done anything like poison water (which neither they nor W. R. Grace did) or Yahoo! has either. But there are ways to handle things without rushing straight to court. Yahoo! could put up a website that explains their non-relationship with YaHooka.
I'm probably just a hopeless idealist though!
They may have changed their site....
by
Papa
·
· Score: 1
OK, like, perhaps I've seen too much web porn for my own good, but the site amazingsex.com seemed pretty tame. Not that I'm trying to call you a prude here, you may well have better taste than I. But they may well have changed the site around. In any event, it's cool that you stood up to them -- it's annoying that the corporations are trying to push around others.
"Another site using the name of the residence of the President of the United States provided pornographic material." Why couldn't they just say whitehouse.com? They don't have to link it or anything, but trying to 'hide' the name like that makes it seem like they think their readers are stupid.
whats going on? i was doing some looking around the web, and i wanted to find the nutritional information on a beverage i happen to be fond of (Yoohoo!) but all i can seem to find is some stupid search engine. whats going on here?
what happened to the original spirit of the web? well it seems to have gone the way of crapitalism! there is plenty of room on the net for yahoo, yahooka and all other domains.....therefore this crap must stop messing up on our idea of the spirit of freedom of the web..... since freedom of the web is a human right
Pardon my ignorance, but can anyone even cite a legal precedent that proves that trademark law applies to domain names at all, let alone derivate domain names? What next, cease and desist letters claiming "Your 1-800 number differs from ours by only 1 digit, creating confusion in the minds of our customers. Therefore we demand that you immediately turn this number over to us!"
As I understand trademark law, "yahoo" is a standard english word which shouldn't be trademark able. "Yahoo!" may be trademarkable, and the Yahoo logo is certainly trademarkable. Perhaps a reasonable solution would be for YaHooka to drop the "!" from their logo.
Personally, I think anybody that would actually confuse the two sites would most likely be more interested in visiting YaHooka anyway. I never visit either anyway...
--
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
Slashdot Mirror
Or is my school banning Yahooka? Hmm.. I wouldn't put it past them..
How nice that companies that grew big because of the free and open nature of the internet are now turning around and suing members of the internet community.
Yahoo, we remember when you were just a pissant little web site. Stick a nail in your swelled heads and deflate your egos some.
We should start blacklisting sites over this nonsense.
Mebbe they could rename it "McHooka" and let Mickydeester (kiss my keyster) sue them also.
But the thing I really think is that when NewHoo was Gnuhoo everyone thought it was a terrible thing for the Gnuhoo folks to do, but here the tables are turned, and it's the big bad corporation coming down hard on the good guys, they should take a joke already! You can't have it both ways, but that's what you want. And that sucks. I imagine someone will point out some lame difference that stretches the point till it snaps.
The Cynic
Yahoo is legally bound to defend their trademark, otherwise they lose it. I thought the majority of /. readers would have been clued into this side of trademark laws because of the whole Linux trademark fiasco. Guess not.
Yet Linus won't enforce his TM on linux.com, .net. or .org. He really should.
It may not make a difference, but I recommended yahoo a lot to friends and family members that were first using the internet. This just burns me up that yahoo has made so much money off of myself and people like me using their web site--and is now using that money to pay high priced lawyers (who I hate) to attack small sites that obviously don't have the resources to defend themselves.
Another example of mega-corps with money taking away individual freedom... Knowing Yahoo's roots on the internet(and therefore free speach/exchange of information) I didn't think yahoo would ever do this type of thing. I guess I was naive.
I can see Yahoo's side in this arguement...its a case of tradename infringement essentially....
Yahoo has developed a name which has a certain amount of Goodwill amoung the internet community( please only comment to this statement if you actually know what goodwill is ) and I'm sure quite rightfully they feel that yahooka set up their name to spunge some of the publicity and "goodwill" from yahoo... whether they did or not...
This type of action is extremely common, small less than ethical companies name themselves closely to large corporations to try and grow their businesses based on name recognition that they dont deserve.
On the otherside unfortunately, big companies are more and more so trying to use their weight to push small companies around because of the cost of litigation. Without trying to inflame here the US is horrible for this, every other countires government organizations that deal with exporting warn home grwn companies about the dangers of setting up shop in the US and that is that you will get sued for everything and anything and people will try to starve you via court costs.... In fact I read somewhere that "apparently" the US has 75% of all registered practicing lawyers on the planet...... No wonder crap like this happens.....
I'm sure this situation could probably be arbitrated easily without the need for bullying etc by yahoo and there gaggle of fear mongers....
In fact probably a very simple solution would be to have Yahooka have a banner on their main page stating that they are in no way associsted with Yahoo and Yahoo could do the same.... but this is comprise and it seems that the lawyers dont make any money that way...
Wow, big deal, I can hear they're stock price falling now.
These names are not easy to come up with and funny because they make fun of yahoo.com its because they use the word yahoo. Its really stupid that some company can trademark a coman english word/phrase/anything. Its like someone taking the domain "you". So then they could take away yousuck.com... Its such BS. I think domains should be a first come first served.
Next thing you know, they'll be going after Jewhoo
This reminds me of a case here in Denmark, where McAllen, a guy driving a hot-dog stand, was sued by McDonalds. :)
He won in the end (and sure got a lot of publicity
Sure they can. Source code is copyrighted all the time.
Code is one thing... HTML scripting, though, I can hardly see how...
How is HTML source (which is rendered into what you see in your browser) different from C (or whatever language) source (which is rendered, or compiled, into an executable program)? Either way it still represents the instructions to create a finished product.
But this isn't the issue with Yahooka. Yahoo isn't claiming copyright infringement, only trademark infringement. There is a difference.
fuck yahoo and its corporate whores concerned
solely with pumping its "good brand name"
penis. no wonder why wall st. likes its
stock so much. they've proven their judeo-christian sanitation.
Ok, Go to the YaHooka! Homepage, and tell me that that heading listing doesn't look exactly tike the Heading listing on Yahoo!. Yahoo! Was the fist site to do it that way, and they're probably more pissed off about the page format then the domain. But they probably only have a legal case about the domain. They're screwed. But it's they're own fault.
Perhaps we should all send our thoughts to abuse@yahoo.com. This company needs a lesson in market perceptions.
Anyone remember way back when they were in
Stanford and their web page would have a little
graphical icon for each category and take
forever to load?
does anyone know if www.bully.com is registered...
someone should grab it and make a site dedicated to revealing the corporate bullies on the net so we could all boycott them...I always make sure to send an e-mail to anyone I can find at a site when they pull crap like this to let them know I for one will be taking my browsing elsewhere....
Yep, and it's said you control everything. Well, thats ok, so far your religion hasn't created an Inquisition, nor a Hitler, nor a Martin Luther. I'd rather leave the world to be run by Judaism than Christianity, but then I start to read the Washington Report..
:)
Oh well, all religions suck!
Then sue everyone whose domain names start with the letter a? Its the same thing, anything starting with a would be a derivative of my new company's trademark...
There's a difference between defending against actual dilutions of one's trademark, and suing everybody who has a domain name similar to theirs regardless of what's on the site. If yahooka.com stated/implied any affiliation with yahoo.com, then Yahoo would have a case. If they provided a similar service, Yahoo would have a case. But neither is true. There's no way someone is going to confuse the two; it's not even like yahooka is some typo someone would make trying to get to Yahoo. There is no way the two sites are possibly going to be confused, or associated with each other. Yahoo is just hoping to intimidate these guys, and win through intimidation what they wouldn't be able to win in court.
Send mail to
mailto:copyright@yahoo-inc.com
and tell them what you think.
I think to be perfectly fair to businesses, we should do away with DNS completely and go back to dot quads.
that, I'll surmise, YaHoo! does not like. They ARE almost identical.
YaHooka should drop the ! and change their LOGO, perhaps with a hooka form, and they'll be set.
See7 316.html
http://www.wired.com/news/news/politics/story/1
After all, it was he, NOT the people at Yahoo! who invented the word (and the yahoos in his Gulliver's Travels epitomized all of humanities bad qualities). Hmm...
so why not html?
LEGALIZE!!!
*sigh*
Yahoo is an internet portal
Yahooka provides information about softdrugs
There simply cannot be any confusion between the two.
(Wether yahoo might consider using their trademark of soft-drugs information in the future is irrelevant, and wether some people are too stupid to see the distrinction is irrelevant as well)
- Erwin
Hm. Reminds me of the conflict about AJAX.ORG. After a huge write-in campaign, that case was dropped. I sent my letter of boycott to Colgate-Palmolive as did many others, and it seemed to have worked (although they would not admit to THAT being the reason).
Now we have a site that is suffering under much the same problem. There is NO way anyone would possibly confuse YaHooka with Yahoo.. much the same way ajax.org could not be confused with a commercial Colgate-Palmolive oriented site.. however it seems that somebody at Yahoo has gotten a hair up their butt about all of this.
Here's a guess:
Yahoo Bigshot: What?! There's a Marajuana site that has the name YaHooka?!?!?! *looks at the site* Jesus Christ! That'll make us look like idiots! We're a public corporation and this sort of thing is the type of issue that can dilute our stock value! Send this letter to the legal department!
And so it begins. Paranoia breeds idiocy. Even though YaHooka has ben around for awhile, and has NEVER been confused with Yahoo, the person(s) involved in this revelation decided that because this was a DRUG site, it was abhorrent to their sensibilities and should be taken down by any means necessary. The problem I see is that they will get less sympathy from The Powers That Be (tm) because of their orientation.
I boycotted Yahoo a long time ago when I realized it had become a mouthpiece for Corporate interests. They have no qualms about de-indexing something for any reason, or not indexing something because it doesn't fit in with their 'format'.. invisibly, so that the user has NO idea that this information IS out there, but Yahoo blocks it from their engine. Mind you, someone with a clue will know this.. which is why I don't use Yahoo. I always recommend MetaCrawler. (And please, if anyone out there knows Bad Things about MetaCrawler, let me know.. but they look good)
So I say, good luck to YaHooka. I think they will win this.. assuming that Yahoo doesn't throw a million dollars of lawyers at them. They may not be able to afford to compete.
Allegedly this Yahooka site are a bunch of spammers and are so lame they can't even think up two different lines of spam.
despite their claimed to be non-profit, this allegedly is a lie and they are spamming for marijuana seeds companies, en masse.
read this:
http://www.yahooka.com/seeds.htm
then read this:
http://members.tripod.com/~spookbusters/
click on the article right at the top of the spookbusters website
yahooKA is the Feds alright.
they want your e-mail address as well
spam spam spam spam spam
spam spam spam spam spam
spam spam spam spam spam
spam spam spam spam spam
spam spam spam spam spam
spam spam spam spam spam
spam spam spam spam spam
spam spam spam spam spam
spam spam spam spam spam
Yeah, "may confuse". Sure. confuses lawyers. So
confuse they're actually braindead. Shakespeare
was right: "First we should kill all lawyers".
"The more prohibitions there are, The poorer the people will be" -- Lao Tse
- A.P.
--
"One World, One Web, One Program" - Microsoft Promotional Ad
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
it can pass as a parody. nuff said.
>Double darn. I guess that idea to start a new condom company called Yahoo! is out too.
You could always call it Whoopee!
VENI! VIDI! VICI!
Posted by majestic1:
I don't get these cases, it's not like i can sue my friend for his house if i want it for no reason. They don't make sense. Just a stupid corporation thinking they can do anything.. bullshit.
Posted by Stephen "The Carp" Carpenter:
.COM domains start at $7,500.00 USD .COM domains start at [DEL: $3,000 :DEL]
:)
anyone ever seen KDE.com?
heh: http://www.kde.com
The domain name kde.com is for sale
The pricing structure is as follows:
2 letter
3 letter
Holiday sale $2,000.00 USD
....
it just goes on...man this crap is disgusting.
I think there needs to be a new rule on domains.
Any domains found to be registered SOLELY for the
purpose of "placeholding" for the purpose
of sale at higher prices (hmm perhaps call it
scalping) should be revoked immediatly with
NO refund of fees.
(This would not stop a company from reserving
registering a domain they arn't using yet
if it is for their own use/ or their trade mark)
hmm you know...that does sound like a good idea.
Who is controlling domains these days (like
.COM)? I think I have a suggestion
Posted by antivert:
Indeed. We may find a corporation useful, or want services it may provide.. but a corporation is only a friend to money. Never, *ever* make the mistake of assuming a corporation has your best interests at heart. It's very rarely so.
Posted by antivert:
;)
Can we say "prior art"?
Posted by antivert:
And the banner that says "The Guide to Marijuana on the Internet".
Also.. how many ways are there to categorize that data? And.. if the format of the page were the *only* problem with it, they'd be going after snap.com, lycos.com, altavista.com, etc.
I've been using Yahoo since it's earliest days, and have a good friend who was one of their first employees. But they've gone off the deep end. YaHooka is an obvious parody, and the Supreme Court of the United States has clearly stated that parody has a special, protected place in a democracy. As of this moment, I am no longer using Yahoo...until the apologize to YaHooka.
Imagine yourself being wronged by some large company with deep pockets for lawyers. Let's say that for whatever reason, you know you are right, but you aren't 100% convinced you can prove it in court. Say for example, you are 90% convinced you would win. In a "loser pays" system, that small 10% chance that you might lose is going to scare you away from the case, because *you* can't afford to pay for *their* lawyers, while *they* would have no problem paying for *your* lawyers.
Cases would be decided out of court by FUD. If you have even a glimmer of doubt about the likelyhood of winning, you would never want to set foot in the courtroom.
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
How close do two words have to be for it to be an infringement? Do they have to prove intent as well - so an accidentally similar name would not be a suitable cause for a case? These questions must be answered if the courts are going to allow this kind of thing to continue.
If these questions are inherently unanswerable, then the courts should not be taking these cases at all.
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
There goes my idea for
yahootieandtheblowfish.com, the world's premier search engine for illegal Hootie And The Blowfish mp3's.
Double darn. I guess that idea to start a new condom company called Yahoo! is out too.
I think I once saw a DERRTY movie called "Yahooters" in college. But I was drunk and not in my room. I swear. It wasn't my idea.
Yeah, I'm boycotting yahoo too. Nothing against them, but I don't want to give money to someone who might take my friends Domain away.
It is a problem now.
I realise that Yahoo must defend their trademark, but they can very well do so without sending a gimmee gimmee or we squash you like a bug letter.
For example, they could try being POLITE and they could request that the party agree not to dilute the trademark (including defining what that means) WITHOUT threats.
I'm sorry, but "yahooka" has nothing whatsoever to do with search engines nor does it even come close to sounding like "yahoo" even phonetically or otherwise.
Go pick on Lycos or something.
As far as I understand it, trademark law requires the holder to take legal steps necessary to defend a granted trademark. If other organizations begin using your trademark to the point where it becomes diluted, your rights to that trademark are substantially diminished.
If you don't show that you're taking steps to defend your trademark, you lose it.
I do agree that in this case, "Yahooka" and "Yahoo" are different enough that it's unlikely Yahoo will win a real court case, unless Yahooka simply relents under pressure.
Though I'm starting to get kind of annoyed by all of the lawyer bashing going on here. Most of the time, these lawyers are following instructions given to them by their boss. Something like: "Hey, this marijuana site is using a domain that looks like ours. Stop them." While an ethical lawyer might object and say there's no real case here, they're still employees of the company, serving "the company's" will. If all lawyers suddenly became compassionate, unwilling to hurt the "little guy", allowing anyone to have a field day with their company's trademarks, what do you think would happen? They would get taken advantage of. "Little guys" would step up, take advantage of that "kindness" and profit from The Company's work. Companies like this HAVE to be a little overprotective, because, let's face it, if they're winning every single case in their efforts to protect their trademarks, perhaps they could be doing a little more? The fact that they take on cases and lose a manageable percentage tells me that they're working right on the line, and doing everything they can to ensure their company's wellbeing. If they were to lose a significant number, then I would say they're being a bit overprotective and overzealous. That line between winning and losing is set by the judicial system and their interpretation of the legislation. If you have a complaint there, take it up with those branches of the government.
So when cases like this come up, and you think "damn they're picking on the Little Guy again," try and look at it from the company's point of view. Perhaps write them a letter or an e-mail and ask for their side of the story. Suggest to them any alternatives you can think of. If nothing else, tell them you hate them and will never use their product if they continue to push the issue. (This can work!) If, after they respond (assuming they do) you still think the whole situation sucks, don't be so quick to blame all of the Evil Lawyers and stick it where it belongs: The Company. Now, if the evil company actually WINS the case, and you STILL think it sucks despite the judge's reasoning behind his ruling, that's when you go complaining to your legislature.
Will you still think all lawyers suck when your child is hit by a car and you're forced to sue for damages? Lawyers are working for their clients. They aren't saying, "Hey, man, you can easily double the amount of money you're asking.. let's stick 'em where it hurts!"
As for lawyers not saying "you can make more, stick 'em where it hurts", they do exactly that. I have known several people that hired lawyers for various reasons after being in some sort of accident, and without exception they were advised by their lawyers to exaggerate the extent of their injuries (or in one case to claim one that didn't exist) for the purposes of a larger settlement. Note that I have no more respect for the people who followed this advice than I do for the attorneys themselves, but the general consensus among them was that this is normal procedure and everyone accepts it as such.
Did the lawyer just volunteer that information, or did the client ask them how they could get the most possible money out of it?
The two lawyers I've dealt with were relatively honest and fair about things... If sickens me to think that this practice is considered normal procedure. If my lawyer started telling me all these ways to cheat my way into getting more money out of a case, I really don't think I would want to take advantage of that. In fact, I'm tempted to say now that I would fire a lawyer who behaved like that.
I just think that's very unethical.
To address this, the school instituted a program whereby if the student would sign a contract that said they would only do certain types of work (public defender, non-profit orgs, etc) and limit their income to $35,000 per year for the first x number of years after graduation (it was either 3 or 5), the school would give them their education for free. Note that this was all inclusive - tuition, board, etc. In the two years the program had been in effect (and all incoming students are made the offer) not one single person had signed on. Not one.
That just seems insane to me. I think I could live relatively comfortably on 35k/year. Free tuition? I would certainly want to take advantage of that.
Maybe there's something else in the plan that's making the offer less appealing?
- Why didn't they register the domain name themselves? If they really wanted to protect their interests, they should have registered every domain name which they thought could be seized--otherwise it's horribly unfair. "Oh, so you want it, eh? Well, too bad, I didn't want it before, but I want it now, and I get it. muhahahah!"
- I don't think they have a chance at a dilution argument. The services provided by Yahoo! and YaHooka aren't similar enough.
Of course, the problem is, Yahoo! doesn't have to be right. They just have to be more able to afford court costs than the little guy. This is where our legal system royally sucks.what about other sites such as www.yahpp.com, www.yahii.com, yahoo.org, yahll.com, yahomo.com etc etc etc...
bastards
My Slashdot account is old enough to drink...
After running ML.ORG for so long I know a
good deal about the whole domain name issue.
There is no trademark dilution here, as
someone mentioned. Yahoo has no need to 'defend'
their trademark rights in this case since there
is no dilution. They went after this company
since they didn't like what they were saying.
There is also the situation that trademarks
are based by 'class' -- ie you can not
trademark a word (few exceptions, like made
up words) for EVERYTHING. LIke 'yahoocake.com'
which obviously is not in the same business
as 'yahoo.com'. Going down that argument,
yahooka.com is a different class than yahoo.com.
Legally, they are ok.
Of course, as others have pointed out, it's
all about money. Deeper pockets. I too, have
sent a letter to Yahoo, telling them that I've
been a user since akebono.cs.stanford.edu
days, and if they don't quit their stupid
lawsuit, they can be sure I will never visit
their site again.
Hard to see Yahoo having a legal case... not that they'd inherently need one in court against someone who can't afford to defend themselves in court.
(sorry about wordwrap. http://209.54.9.11/)
% dig a www.yahooka.com @209.54.6.21
; > DiG 2.2 > a www.yahooka.com @209.54.6.21
; (1 server found)
;; res options: init recurs defnam dnsrch
;; got answer:
;; ->>HEADER;; flags: qr aa rd ra; Ques: 1, Ans: 1, Auth: 0, Addit: 0
;; QUESTIONS:
;; www.yahooka.com, type = A, class = IN
;; ANSWERS:
www.yahooka.com. 3600 A 209.54.9.11
Companies like Yahoo live on one single thing only: Net traffic. It's very easy to show Yahoo a token of our consideration: from today I remove every link I have to Yahoo and I'm not going to use their web site for the time being.
I have no interest in marijuana but this kind of actions is ridicolous and has to be punished. Avoid Yahoo and ask your friends to do the same.
Oh, hell.
You think for a moment that lawyers would support the "little guy"???
If your paycheck depended on you getting 10% of $1,000,000 or 10% of nothin - what would you do?
The problem is the system. It rewards the folks who are most able to buy justice.
Damn, I should have gone to law school, I thought there was honor in learning a trade.
dreaded scurrilous bit-twiddler from Oklahoma
Found this the other day, at www.law.georgetown.edu
Like most others here, I think this sucks. There is obviously no chance of anyone confusing Yahoo with YaHooka. I say we let Yahoo know that we don't like this. Here's a list of Yahoo's executives and the URL where I found it. Their email addresses are not listed, but if I find them I'll post them here. There are a couple of feedback forms on their site, too. I've also looked up the companies phone number and the snail mail address, for those who figure their "two cents worth" is worth 32 cents or more.
Suggestions
The Yahoo! Experience
Investor Relations: Directors & Officers
Street Address
Yahoo! Inc.
3420 Central Expressway, 2nd Floor
Santa Clara, CA 95051
Phone
(408) 731-3300
Fax
(408) 731-3301
Office Hours
8:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. PST
Jerry Yang - Chief Yahoo! and Director
David Filo - Chief Yahoo!
Tim Koogle - President and Chief Executive Officer
Jeffrey Mallett - Chief Operating Officer
John Place - General Counsel
Anil Singh - Senior Vice President of Sales
Karen Edwards - Vice President, Brand Marketing
Gary Valenzuela - Senior V.P. of Finance & Administration and Chief Financial Officer
Farzad Nazem - Senior V.P. of Product Development & Operations, Chief Technical Officer
James Nelson - Vice President, Finance
Timothy Brady - Vice President, Production
Heather Killen - Vice President, International
Geoff Ralston - Vice President, Development and Communciations
Ellen Siminoff - Vice President, Business Development
Srinija Srinivasan - Vice President, Editor in Chief
Arthur Kern - Director
Michael Moritz - Director
Eric Hippeau - Director
Happy Hunting!!
Vince V.
Linux help for beginners to advanced users: Control-Escape.com
Another example of a Big Company trying to scare the little guy. Did anyone else notice they only gave Yahooka 4 days to respond? That in itself is not right. I thought legally, they had 30 days to respond. Does anyone know?
I don't want to sell anything, buy anything, or process anything. I don't want to sell anything bought or processed...
If my memory serves didn't yahoo the drink co. sue yahoo the web directory co. a while back?
Like yahoo or not, domain squatting has made a mess of the web. its not fair that someone can go out and buy up every conceivable permutation of a company's brand name and then blackmail them to get it back.
t ml?s=v/nm/19990113/ts/internet_3.html
There are motions in place now to stop this retarded practice:
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/headlines/ts/story.h
They can "vigilantly defend their trademark" without these kind of scare tactics.
No court would ever force yahooka to give their domain to yahoo.. they might force them to stop using it.. but it in no way *belongs* to Yahoo. A simple 'Please put this disclaimer and acknowledge in your site that this is not associated with yahoo.com' would have been just fine.
But no, they have to sick the attack dogs on em... so much for me using yahoo.
Pretty pathetic that Yahoo! (TM) has to go to court to get their grubby little hands on a domain name. Can't they just buy them out like every other greedy corporation that is out there would do?
..... um, nevermind!
I don't think this is so much a trademark issue as it is one to get something for next to nothing. I mean, sure it will cost them money for their lawyers, and the PR department will have to work overtime to make up for the scene they created. Oh well, that's big business for you...
By the way, how could they trademark a name that I use for my
Seems like they'd have more of a beef with yahooters.com (not that I've ever been there...)
Although I think this should have been done in a more friendly way, I can see Yahoo's side. If you visit the yahooka site, it's a blatant ripoff of the Yahoo directory's basic look and feel.
I don't think they should be required to turn over the domain name, but I would feel a lot better about them if they were a little more original.
D
I own the domain amazing.com.
A company called Metro Global owns the domain amazingsex.com. They have also used the name "amazing" in their pornography production for some time.
They gave me a ring, suggesting that my name interfered with their trademark, and suggesting that some kind of arrangement be made. I took a look at their web site, and was appalled - it's just a horrible, crummy place. So naturally I was in no mood to sell them amazing.com . They threatened to sic lawyers on me, and they proposed to meet me for a bite to eat to negotiate.
I eventually agreed, and after some thought sent them a lengthly memo regarding my feelings about their web site. Now, understand, I have nothing against sex sites, but I have plenty against awful sex sites like the aforementioned amazingsex. I also visited their LA headquarters and quite visibly took some digital photographs with my Canon XL1. Finally, I bought a couple of their videos, which are not nearly as bad as their web site, but still below the standards I'd like to see if I sold my domain. I quite loudly mentioned within the stores that I was buying the videos because of their attempt to grab my domain name. I got nothing but befuddled sympathy from the video store owners.
In the end, they melted away. I don't think they appreciated my suggestions about the quality of their web site!
I don't think these tactics would work with Yahoo, but they might help others involved in a similar dispute.
D
They haven't changed their site much, as far as I can tell.
It wasn't the tameness that bothered me - it was the horrible quality and tacky feel of what was on offer.
D
I never liked the chocolate drink (now that seems like a real trademark issue seeing as how there is no ! on domain names) and I never liked the web site.
:)
I guess yahooka.com could always get the source for slashdot, change their domain name, and launch
slashpot.org.....as long as rob doesn't sue them that is
SlashPot
News for heads. Hemp that matters.
One of the best arguments that could be used to support their main cause (Marijuana use that is) is the fact that their response to this was a lot more lucid and concise than the initial message appears after you've looked at both sites. The first thing that occurs to me to ask when I see that lawsuit is "What were the Yahoo people smoking?" Evidently it wasn't Marijuana...
I am removing all links and references on my homepage to Yahoo, and will find another source for all of the services I, until today, used Yahoo for. I suggest anyone else who feels strongly that this action is inappropriate do the same.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
So, in other words, we should meekly accept any behavior we find reprehensible simply because it is common?
This action goes way beyond "defending" their trademark -- they are using the American justice system, and indirectly my tax dollars, to intimidate a small site for the inexcusable crime of making a parody of their name. They don't have a case, and if this site were owned by an entity with significant capital, they would not be persuing this. This is intimidation under the guise of justice, pure and simple. And yes, if this becomes more and more common, I will be changing links more and more often. As often as is necessary to avoid supporting, even indirectly, corporations which feel this kind of behavior is appropriate. And BTW, I do not limit my displeasure to removing links. I also remove any business relationship of any kind to companies which I deem unethical. In other words, I put my money where my mouth is. If more of us did so, this kind of thing would be growing less, rather than more, common.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
Your erronious assumption is that all, or even most, corporations vindictively persue anyone who uses a word or phrase slightly similar to their trademark. In addition, you erroniously assume Yahoo's action is a "defense" of their trademark, rather than an unwarrented attack on a little guy, who is exercising their constitutional right to parodize, which right has been confirmed time and time again in courts of law throughout the country. This attempt at intimidation is clearly financial, with Yahoo hoping that this particular "little guy" won't be able to afford to defend their rights under the law. Most companies do not engage in this sort of vindictive behavior, though of course if we all subscribe to the cynical apathy you espouse that will undoubtably change.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
Have the EFF or somebody register yahooba.com, yahoola.com, yahoona.com, yahoocha.com,...
Have the NBA register yahoops.com
Have Hooters restaurants register yahoots.com
Then there's yapoo.com, yatoo.com, yafoo.com...
I thought Apple vs MS settled that one..
All of us /.'ers could just run over to Yahoo! and suggest a site (YaHooka.com) about a million times. Maybe they would get the idea?
What about that "newhoo" site. Why aren't they suing them? (I think it is owned by Netscape aka AOL) Maybe they don't care as much about sites that not many people visit.
I'm not saying that YaHooka has done anything like poison water (which neither they nor W. R. Grace did) or Yahoo! has either. But there are ways to handle things without rushing straight to court. Yahoo! could put up a website that explains their non-relationship with YaHooka.
I'm probably just a hopeless idealist though!
Papa
"Another site using the name of the residence of the President of the United States provided pornographic material." Why couldn't they just say whitehouse.com? They don't have to link it or anything, but trying to 'hide' the name like that makes it seem like they think their readers are stupid.
Force Recon Half-Life TC: Check it out
mcox.com - Useful Information re: IT, Running, Fitness, Finance, or Ann Arbor!
whats going on? i was doing some looking around the web, and i wanted to find the nutritional information on a beverage i happen to be fond of (Yoohoo!) but all i can seem to find is some stupid search engine. whats going on here?
what happened to the original spirit of the web? well it seems to have gone the way of crapitalism! there is plenty of room on the net for yahoo, yahooka and all other domains.....therefore this crap must stop messing up on our idea of the spirit of freedom of the web..... since freedom of the web is a human right
As I understand trademark law, "yahoo" is a standard english word which shouldn't be trademark able. "Yahoo!" may be trademarkable, and the Yahoo logo is certainly trademarkable. Perhaps a reasonable solution would be for YaHooka to drop the "!" from their logo.
Personally, I think anybody that would actually confuse the two sites would most likely be more interested in visiting YaHooka anyway. I never visit either anyway...
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney