Slashdot Mirror
No EToy for Christmas
etoy was founded in 1994 by a group of European artists who worked on the cutting edge, doing performance art at techno events and raves. Their focus has always been on the internet as new medium; this interview gives a feel for their perspective.
They picked the name "etoy" literally by consensus and running code. Being from Italy, England, and Switzerland, physical collaboration was difficult, so they got together on an IRC channel and went through a list of random names generated by a perl script. When "etoy" came up, they all knew that was the name they wanted; they first used it in October of 1994. In October 1995 they put up their website at etoy.com.
Christmas 1995 came and went.
In 1996, etoy won their first artistic award. Their work typically blurs the line between real world and art; in this case, they had undertaken to demonstrate how important and yet how fragile the system of search engines was. By subverting the meta tags of prominent websites like Playboy, they pulled inexperienced surfers to their site, where they put in a plug for Kevin Mitnick, and had a few laughs at the newbies' expense. They called it the "Digital Hijack."
A curious kind of art. In 1996 it was original enough to win an award from Ars Electronica. Nowadays everyone knows the trick, the search engines find it and disregard it, and some underhanded websites try to make a fast buck by stealing trademarks - but etoy did it first, for fun.
Christmas 1996 came and went.
In June 1997 etoys.com, with an S, began operations. It wasn't until October that their website went online. They filed for a U.S. trademark on their domain, at which point etoy got a little alarmed and filed for their own trademark on their own domain. Maybe because they're based in Europe, or maybe for some other reason, etoy says their application is still pending on some technicalities.
But it doesn't matter when their trademark is granted. Their website went online in October 1995, two full years before etoys', and it's date of first use that's important - not the date of filing.
Christmas 1997 came and went.
Christmas 1998 came and went.
But now it's 1999, the year of the e-tailer. Suddenly etoys.com, with an S, has gone public and is worth six billion dollars. Meanwhile etoy.com, without an S, again putting the spotlight on corporations and society, has raised money by "selling shares" of itself. I'm not quite sure how they did it, but at an artists' gathering, a half-serious, half-mocking exhibition-slash-fundraising they pulled in something over ten thousand dollars. (Which they then donated to their friends in the U.S., also working at the boundary of society and corporations, RTMark, best-known for their George W. Bush parody site.)
In the year of the e-tailer, what kind of speech scares corporations more than anything? Disrespect. Artists who don't play by the rules. People who don't understand that business is serious business.
Etoys.com, with an S, wants etoy.com, with no S. They offered money. At one point they were offering cash and (mostly) stock that would have been worth almost half a million dollars. No sale.
But that should give us an idea of how much they're willing to spend on lawyers.
Finally, in September, eToys filed a lawsuit against etoy, on the grounds that a potential customer had mistakenly gone to the wrong site and had seen the message that - if they wanted to enjoy etoy.com to its fullest extent - they should download "the fucking flash plugin." They also didn't like the pierced breasts or etoy's sense of humor.
To be precise, they claim that "the antisocial, obscene, and offensive images associated with defendants' use of the mark 'etoy,' both on the Internet and elsewhere, have tarnished the ETOYS® mark and the eToys brand name..."
Let this be a lesson to anyone whose domain is coveted by a multi-billion-dollar company: careful with the F-word.
In October and November the case was bounced from an L.A. court to U.S. District Court, and finally to a California State Court. In late November the judge refused a request to let the European artists attend the proceedings by teleconference. In those proceedings, the judge was told that the artists had engaged in "digital hijacking" (the 1996 project), and had sold shares of stock without being properly regulated on an official stock exchange (the 1999 fundraising exhibition). Worst of all, they were hosting illegal hardcore pornography (which was actually just a link to another site).
They claim:
"Defendants use the mark ETOY indiscriminately and in random association with unrelated concepts. For example, on the etoy web site alone, defendants use the mark ETOY in conjunction with other, randomly selected words to create phrases such as: 'etoy.research,' 'etoy.eternity,' 'etoy.timezone,' 'etoy.history,' 'etoy.servers,' 'etoy.strategy,' 'etoy.journeys,' 'etoy.universe,' and 'etoy.crew.'
"By using the mark ETOY in this random, indiscriminate manner, defendants cause both ETOY and the ETOYS® mark to lose any distinctive, signifying meaning."
Serious business.
The lawyers also kindly suggested that, since at least one etoy member is from Switzerland, they really would be more suited to a website in the .ch domain: etoy.ch. Never mind the years of work and the reputation that the artists have built around etoy.com - we all know that "dot-com" belongs to America!
Faced with a torrent of buzzwords, the judge issued a preliminary injunction barring etoy from: operating a website in the etoy.com domain; associating their domain name with the "digital hijack"; or selling their "shares" in the U.S.
Penalty for disobeying the injuction: $10,000 per day in fines.
On November 30, etoy.com shut down its Apache webserver. Its last access came from the eToys law firm (which has been monitoring it closely). They had no choice, really. In fact, when I talked with a member of etoy, he was very nervous about saying things which might get him in more legal trouble. Suddenly, the artists are afraid to speak.
How can this be, when, as the Village Voice wrote in an excellent article, this lawsuit doesn't even pass the "giggle test"? It's absurd to think that one website can shut down another for having a similar domain name - when the second site is not a domain poacher and has been operating two years longer than the first.
The date of the next court hearing, at which this preliminary injunction will surely be overturned: December 27th. How convenient! Just after the Christmas shopping season.
If you'd like to see more about etoy, their domain is down of course, and I don't know of any mirrors, but their fans have constructed a site at toywar.com that has some information. And etoy may put some or all of its site back online at its IP number (not name!): 146.228.204.72:8080.
Good rules have been written to prevent things like this from happening. Unfortunately, the rules have not taken effect yet for most domains. Even after they do take effect, their legal status will be uncertain until they are tested in court.
Those rules are ICANN's Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy. This policy ensures that the conditions under which a domain name can be disputed are strictly limited. For such a dispute even to proceed, a complainant must assert that each of three things is true:
your domain name infringes on a trademark;
you have "no rights or legitimate interests" to your domain;
and your domain name is being used "in bad faith."
As long as you're operating in good faith, or you have any legitimate interest in your domain, there is not even cause to bring up a dispute over a domain. Clearly this puts etoy.com on firm ground, because regardless of the trademark issue (which should be resolved once their mark registration is granted) they win on the other two points. This doesn't stop clueless judges from issuing injuctions, of course. But having these rules codified as official policy will give the legal system better guidelines to operate by.
These rules went into effect for some domain name registries on Wednesday, but will not apply to the most popular registry, Network Solutions, until January.
I can't even complain to eToys.com. I clicked all over their website looking for an email contact address and couldn't find one. When I filled in the web form to ask that someone get in touch with me for this story, all I got was a email form letter:
It is our goal to respond to all order-related e-mail within 24 hours. If your e-mail is not order-related, we will do our best to take care of your questions, concerns and suggestions as soon as possible.
It's 72 hours later, so my email must not have been sufficiently order-related.
In the meantime, I can at least have the satisfaction of taking my order-related business elsewhere this holiday season. I'm sure eToys couldn't care less, but it will serve me as a small comfort during the remaining 22 holy shopping days. In a world run by retailers, e-tailers, and lawyers, I need everything I can get to help me make sense of the bizarre orgy of spirituality-soaked commerce that serves as the endcap of each year. Hohoho.
One of these STUPID cases should be taken all the way to the supreme court to set a precident.
This is exactly the kind of timely and relevant news I for one keep readhing slashdot for.
I have yet to start my Christmas shopping, and intend to do most of it on-line (for my nefew, four nieces aged one to six, and various other relatives). I probably would have wound up using etoys.com for at least some purchases, but in light of these events I will make a point in not doing so.
Those of us (in the US at least) conscientious enough vote every couple of years. ALL OF US vote with our money (dollars, yen, euros, whatever) every day. It is my profound pleasure to vote against the fucks at etoys.com for what they have done this Christmas season.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
'Might makes right' is something that should be and can be fought on the digital frontier. Now what can we do about this, instead of just blustering and going 'that's wrong!' Suggestions?
Gonzo Granzeau
"Nothing the god of biomechanics wouldn't let you into heaven for.." -Roy Batty
Based on the facts as stated in this article, I would say that the people from the etoy site would have the basis for a counter suit against EToys. And since EToys is worth $6 billion, it seems they can afford a multi-million dollar settlement.
Maybe with that, the etoy people can afford to get themselves a better address... one that won't be confused with a stupid toy company.
Mike Eckardt meckardt@yahoo.spam.com
wow that is amazing.
It is not surprising that etoys sought to remove etoy, it will happen a lot more as the net becomes more commercial. And while some may stand for free speech those that stand for free trade will win everytime. Has happened in the pass and will happen in the future
Woe be on to them, all who rise against poor people, shall perish in a the end. Buju Banton
...it would be a SHAME if something HAPPENED to it!
I'm not advocating this... But if all of the people who thought this was unfair would start just ONE ping process pointing at etoys.com, it would ruin their Christmas, too.
It's very sad to live in a day when having a domain name that's similar to another company's can get your site pulled under threat of heavy fines. What's particularly aggrivating is the fact that they were around long before eToys was (especially if we look at internet time). Looks like I'd better hurry and register slashdoot.org.
a) Who cares.. b) How stupid would you feel if you wonder into your favorite RadioShack (or Tower Records) only to find yourself in RadioShucks or Tower Ripcords run of the mill crazy place :) We are all very brave when time comes to protect something we do not really care about. O yes, right, if we do not stop that today , tomorrow some big corporation will come and sue you to take away your precious name, Johny:) Wake up and look at REAL problems...
so on internet related matters, anyone can sue anyone enywhere on earth using only local rules (and trademarks and the like)? how do they expect to enforce the ruling anyway? ask switserland for extradiction of the criminals? or was the judge convinced switserland is one of the fifthysomething states?
how on earth does a us district court impose fines on european citizens (regardless of WHY)? isn't there a jurisdictional problem here? is the machine running the site located in the united states? if not, why would they take it down?
(ps - i don't know if i would file this under censorship. do you have a section for corporate extortion?)
- pal
How about a select set of courts that have judges who REALLY understand the internet, computers, etc.? Then we can send cases like this to those courts, and no stupid ass injunctions like this would ever take place... Just an idear. -thomas
First, national trademark law overrides the agreement -- the agreement can't prevent people from defending their trademark (or it would erode everyone's trademarks -- trademark law is generally 'defend it or lose it').
Second, the agreement is between ICANN and the current owner of the allegedly infringing domain, not the person/entity doing the suing -- it's even possible the plaintiff has never heard of ICANN. And even if they do own domains, thus having entered into this agreement with ICANN, the agreement applies to domains they already own, not other people's domains that they don't like.
-
<SIG>
"I am not trying to prove that I am right... I am only trying to find out whether." -Bertolt Brecht
<sig>Guvf vf abg n frperg zrffntr
Does anyone remember the good old days? When Gopherspace could get you anything you could think of? When the internet was a place for sharing ideas? Who let big business in here anyway? It's all one big commercial now!
"History doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme." Mark Twain
Three stories in a row about big business screwing over little people in a globalist setting. Very interesting. Throw in the Co$ story, and ./ is becoming a dangerous, subvertive site that needs to have some government agency shut it down before it causes some civil unrest.
Hear that FBI/BATF/CIA/WTO/etc? Something needs to be done about this site! Think about the children!
Finkployd
How can an US court enforce a $10000 fine on Europeans? Also ... in this kind of cases, I *think* that normally, at least here in France, the ruling court should be the in the defendants' jursidiction. But IANAL.
Where was the etoy.com web server physically located? I don't think Californian courts have juristiction in Switzerland or in the U.K. At least not yet. Either way, I think that what eToys (with an S) did is disgusting.
Now to the heart of the matter - we already know who's going to win this one. The domain dispute policy will be amended to allow etoys to excercise it's unfair domain grab, and in a few months nobody will care. That's how it happened with dozens of other sites, modulo a few featured here on slashdot. The question is, of course, why haven't we forcefully lifted control from the government and InterNIC? We have the authority to reprogram our own, personal DNS servers with whatever information we see fit. People are under the impression that the internet will fall apart if we don't maintain The One True Registry. Well... my vote is for The One True Democratic Registry. We need a digital haven - some place on the planet where politicians can stick a hot poker up their butt if they disagree with the content or purpose of the site (or for that matter, greedy corporations). Freedom of speech taken to it's logical conclusion.
My vote? Sysadmins of the world, unite! Form a second registry and use it. In the meantime.. anybody know if there's a country around that I can get enough access to kick of a "digital haven" - a country with no laws barring any online conduct and outside WTO and US control?
First come, first serve? Listen to the money talk.
Domain Name: ETOY.COM
Record created on 13-Oct-1995.
Domain Name: ETOYS.COM
Record created on 03-Nov-1997.
------
If a tree falls on an anonymous coward yelling 'first post' in the forest, does anybody hear?
that's good. now say it again with me:
BOYCOTT etoys.com (with an s)
they are not getting any of my hard earned $$.
this kind of shite gives me the chills.
Remember, money controls the government. I'm sure that eventually it will be illegal to register a domain if you don't own the trademark to each of the letters in it. Oh well.
I'm sure that some slashdot readers could give some legal advice to the guys over at etoy.com. And if you are a corporate lawyer, shame on you. You should not defend the monsters.
I am the penguin that codes in the night.
There are always a few addresses you can use...
admin@etoys.com
abuse@etoys.com
sales@etoys.com
legal@etoys.com
webmaster@etoys.com
hostmaster@etoys.com
And, of course, they would be more impressed if we snail-mailed them and *gasp* called them or faxed them:
eToys
3100 Ocean Park Blvd., Suite 300
Santa Monica, CA 90405
US
Administrative Contact:
- Admin, eToys
- admin@ETOYS.COM
- (310) 664-8100 Voice
- (310) 664-8101 Fax
Technical Contact, Zone Contact:
- eToys HostMaster
- hostmaster@ETOYS.COM
- (310) 664-8100 Voice
- (310) 664-8101 Fax
Billing Contact:
- Admin, eToys
- admin@ETOYS.COM
- (310) 664-8100 Voice
- (310) 664-8101 Fax
I suppose that those who host their DNS info really don't have anything to do with it, but it might be a reminder for them to know who their customers *really* are if we sent a *very* polite email referencing this article, and asking what their opinion of their customer's actions are...
DNS Servers:
NAME.ROC.FRONTIERNET.NET
NAME.PHX.FRONTIERNET.NET
NS1.IDEALAB.COM
NS2.IDEALAB.COM
PLEASE be nice in any and all communications with anyone! (Man, I wish I didn't have to say that!) We can be nice and still express displeasure in someone's actions.
-Adam
"Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence" - Napoleon Bonaparte.
what if { ... right before xmas?
:-(
There was a coordinated DoS attack against the rat bastards at etoys.com
Might these lawyer happy companies realize that the net has it's own rules and they can't just shove whatever they want down our collective throates?
} end hypothitical situation
I wouldn't _advocate_ such a thing though -- that'd be illegal
The easiest and most obviouse thing to do is to move their site to a server to a country that is lax on copyright enforcement. This would probably meaning changing the .com, but a US judge would have no authority over property in another country which legally owned by some one who is a citizen of another country.
SilverFate
[Y]our wise men don't know what its like to be thick as a brick - Ian Anderson
This makes me mad and sad at the same time. My god, the judge should have thrown the suit out of court in the first place. The judge should not (can not?) even take into consideration the other actions of the organization, which have nothing to do with the trademark! They have nothing to do with the ownership dispute. If a person is mearly accused of slander a judge can't fine him if he drives his car (assuming he hasn't done anything illegal having to do with the car). That's about as rediculous as this is.
It scares me to think that a judge can be so stupid and willingly ignorant.
-----
Do you even know anything about perl? -- AC Replying to Tom Christiansen post.
Those guys over at toywar.com better be careful:
toywarS.com
(-;
Here's a link for contact information at Etoys.com.
I'm sure that some people will use this properly, and some will not, but I'm not the babysitter, just the messenger. I plan to get a hold of them and tell them that I refuse to buy anything else from them until they stop this nonsense.
I've been watching more TV Lately for some odd reason and I find companies adviertising their web sites, www.p*q.com, or on the radio on the way to work this morning the goto network with all of its looser domains. This is typical of how laws can get strung around to eliminate the guy who doesn't have any money. I personally will never buy anything from etoys.com or have ever bought anything from them. Nor have I ever heard of etoy, but I feel sorry for them. I just checked that ip on 8080, I hope they strike back, whether legally or illegally because what etoys.com did was just wrong. Grr, i lost my login for /. Anyway... enjoy the ranting.. --Hyrlik
The eToys contact page is at http://www.etoys.com/html/about_i nformation.shtml They've got a service address (service@etoys.com), a VP of communications (kross@etoys.com), a Director of Investor Relations (ir@etoys.com) and the most likely addressee:
Jonathan Cutler, PR Manager (jcutler@etoys.com)
I understand the difference between a site demonstrating it's right to free speech, trademark infringement, and cyber-squatting. The difference needs to be clearer, and likewise judges need more technical background on the difference between content on a site, and an off-site link. A precident NEEDS to be set! Right now, it is a contest for who has the highest paid lawyers. That makes the artist's counter-suit that much harder as well.
I set up an ODP category for etoy and media coverage of the "toywar" atu lture_Jamming/etoy/
http://dmoz.org/Society/Activism/Media_Activism/C
If you find sites or news items related to etoy, please submit them there.
Click here to go the Contact us page for their website. While a message may not go directly to someone in charge of the company, it might get circulated around. Don't we, as consumers, have a right to voice our opinion to the company? Here is a good way to picket the company without leaving the comfort of our homes. If enough of us contact the website, we might be able to do some good. Consumers, unite!!!
I got the impression that this site was partly owned by an american as well, however federal courts have struck down laws regulating internet content that would hold people who live and run their sites from other states. The same theory should apply here.
SilverFate
[Y]our wiseman don't know what its like to be thick as a brick - Ian Anderson, "Thick as a Brick"
In 24 months when governments start taxing e-commerce there won't be any mom and pop operations to begin with. E-commerce will be more expensive and complex than starting your own brick and morter business in California, so expensive that only the richest will be able to do it. Suddenly the name patenting will dissolve and the issue will be more of who gets to participate in e-commerce in the first place.
It won't be cheap though - watch the EToys stock lose billions in value in the next few weeks.
I am deeply concerned over what I am reading about the ETOY versus ETOYS dispute.
From what I understand, they had the domain name FIRST and have a LEGAL RIGHT to it....
Until this dispute is resolved, I will NOT purchase anything from your site. I have PLENTY of other choices.....
BTW, I am a parent of 3 children, 10, 6, 3. I will ADVISE ALL ON MY MAILING LIST (most with kids) TO DO LIKEWISE....
Cheers and Merry Christmas!
this makes me mad..... someone here who is good at writing please write a nice email to send to etoys telling them you will not be shopping,do stuff like "Dear eToys.com, my name is BLAH" and then ill write a simple cgi and page so everyone can just fill in the blanks and it will send the email to a bunch of etoys.com email addresses....so write up a letter and post it as a reply to this, thanks.
I have been thinking this for a while.
add a short domain to the end and it could even coexist nicely
Someone just has to start it.
I would at least look at it also
Don't just boycott the site, browsecott it.
window shop to say "hey, I like your selection, but oh, I'm sorry, you suck. So I'll buy from somewhere else."
Hmmm....maybe, maybe not.
I wonder if EToy could file a countersuit? I mean, this lawsuit appears to be so silly that it *must* have been brought in bad faith...
-k. ^-^ ^D
As I am trying to do as much Christmas Shopping online this year as possible, I have already bought one present from etoys and was planning on a lot more. I chose them mostly because they are running linux, but this crap out weighs that.
newton62 (56617) Karma: Bad
As a father who had been considering one or two online purchases for his children for the coming Christmas season, I can say that my feelings about this is "I'll go anywhere but etoys.com." Such a thing at least makes me feel good.
A boycott could only work if it is sufficiently advertised. Hopefully, there are a few news services that monitor Slashdot and may make this case a bit more public. Maybe etoys.com can be made to withdraw the lawsuit. Who knows.
Ten years ago, reading USENET only generated smirks from the MBA types, telling me that I was wasting my time and to get a life.
Now those same MBA's have "discovered" the Internet, and are looking to push us out of "their" sandbox.
It's not going to work that way, fellas. Sure, you can sue all you want. Lawsuits don't generate good feeling by potential customers, though. The "little guy's" only recourse is to publicize such abuses as much as possible.
Of course, the next step is to have slime molds like etoys.com purchase cnn.com, msnbc.com, etc. and they won't have to worry about people hearing about such abuses.
So... as I wait to see the 1900's odometer turn, it is heartening to see Slashdot making at least SOME people aware of these types of things.
I still wonder what kind of Internet such companies are going to end up with. And what kind of Internet replacement that WE will come up with so that we don't need to swim in such soiled refuse-ridden sewage.
--
"May I have ten thousand marbles, please?"
Response from Netcraft:
www.etoys.com is running Etoys Web server 1.2 on Linux
First, what the heck is "Etoys Web server 1.2"?
Second, they seem to be stomping all over the spirit of the GPL and its encouragment of sharing and technical fellowship. What a shame that the GPL has no 'asshole' exclusionary clauses.
Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see. - Mark Twain
recently spotted this in LinuxJournal and was rofl.
Chuck
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
It appears that etoy may have been exploiting the resembilance between etoy and etoys to confuse potential investors. This is not just another big company stealing a website, this is possible fraud. the etoy web site also had graphics of toys on it, leading to further confusion between possible customers and investors. This does not prevent them from setting up web.etoy.com and removing any stock information from the pages.
Although they do have problems some times, the US court system is not totaly screwed up.
----------- Judge ruling ---------
defendant etoy corporation d/b/a etoy ("etoy"), and any and all persons acting on behalf or in concern with etoy, are hereby enjoined from doing any of the following pending final adjudication of this action:
1. operating a website with the domain name of www.etoy.com
2. using, displaying or otherwise exploiting in any way the domain name www.etoy.com in connection with the digital hijack.
3. selling, offering to sell, soliciting offers to purchase shares of unregistered shares "etoy stock" to any person in the united states or in california.
signed november 29, 1999: john p. shook, judge, los
angeles county superior court.
i'm sending everyone i know who shops online a link to this story and asking them not to shop @ etoys.
oh, wait, can they sue me for writing those 5 letters in that order without acknowledging their trademark?
cloak of invisibility not working, there are squirrels everywhere
Here are two pages at which you can leave etoys.com feedback: http://www.etoys.com/cgi-bin/cs_print_page.cgi?men upage=1&pagename=t9 http://www.etoys.com/cgi-bin/cs_print_page.cgi?men upage=1&pagename=t10 The first link is to "report a problem with the site", and the second is to "send feedback." I'd say this qualifies as both.
- http://www.etoys.com/cgi-bin/cs_print_page.cgi?me
n upage=1&pagename=t9 - http://www.etoys.com/cgi-bin/cs_print_page.cgi?me
n upage=1&pagename=t10
The first link is to "report a problem with the site", and the second is to "send feedback." I'd say this qualifies as both.https://www.e toys.com/cgi-bin/cs_print_page.cgi?menupage=1&page name=t10
Well, here is some of the contact info I could find for etoys.com.e name=t10
Customer Service: service@etoys.com, 1-800-463-8697 (US), 1-888-983-8697 (CA), 310-664-8530 (Other)
Feedback page: http://www.e toys.com/cgi-bin/cs_print_page.cgi?menupage=1&pag
Here is the info obtained from whois:
Registrant:
etoys (ETOYS3-DOM)
3100 Ocean Park Blvd., Suite 300
Santa Monica, CA 90405
US
Domain Name: ETOYS.COM
Administrative Contact:
Admin, eToys (AE247-ORG) admin@ETOYS.COM
(310) 664-8100
Fax- - (310) 664-8101
Technical Contact, Zone Contact:
eToys HostMaster (EH139-ORG) hostmaster@ETOYS.COM
+1 310 664 8100
Fax- +1 310 664 8101
Billing Contact:
Admin, eToys (AE247-ORG) admin@ETOYS.COM
(310) 664-8100
Fax- - (310) 664-8101
Record last updated on 12-Jul-1999.
Record created on 03-Nov-1997.
Database last updated on 2-Dec-1999
12:28:08 EST.
Domain servers in listed order:
NAME.ROC.FRONTIERNET.NET 209.130.187.10
NAME.PHX.FRONTIERNET.NET 206.165.6.10
NS1.IDEALAB.COM 209.143.242.142
NS2.IDEALAB.COM 207.213.50.30
Just remember folks, if you decide to contact anyone listed, Be Polite and Professional!
We don't need another Slashdot Effect Gone Wrong
-BH
The solution is simple:
------ The best brain training is now totally free : )
I was initially replying to this, but it was moderated down by the time I finished writing my post.
Actually, this seems like a plausible non-violent way to deal with the situation, and doesn't deserve the immediate down-moderation that it got. For all the /.ers who think DOS attacks are automatically wrong, take a look at how slanted this situation is against the little guy, and how the courts seem to be willing to rule for profits and against common sense, and think again.
If the powers that be had half a brain, we wouldn't have to think about stuff like this. But they don't, so we do.
Liberal minded moderators... keep an eye out for stuff like this and moderate it back up. We're part of /. too, and I for one don't buy the party line that attacks on computer systems are automatically wrong. etoys.com is using unjustifiable legal coercion, and they have no right to complain if people retaliate with a different form of coercion.
I tried abuse@ support@ and help@etoys.com. Waiting on response. As far as I'm concerned EToys needs to butt the fuck out of this and graciously apologize for the damage done to EToy. If my name is Matt and I register Matt.com then you register Matts.com two or three years later then try to fight me for rights...AFTER I deny selling you the domain...who is in bad faith?
Scary.
(I wouldn't mention Slashdot.com, but I figure someone should bring it to public attention that guys out there are making money off of mis-hits to /.)
So is anyone going to set up a NOetoys?
Don't tell us to wake up, asshole, especially if you post anonymously.
First of all, I'd like to say that eToys (like Amazon) will not get any business from me by pulling legal crap like this.
With that said, I think eToys should figure out that by owning the domain etoys.com, they Do NOT own etoy.com, or itoys.com or itoy.com, and on and on, ad nauseum, and as such can't just go around forcing sites to shut down "just cuz they have a similar name".
Now, I could see if etoy.com was selling toys, and marketing themselves like eToys, and came out after eToys went public, but that not the case. So how can this even be considered fair!?!
eToys to me seems like a paranoid, big bully company. There are tons of sites that have similar domain names to big sites and have "controversial" material (not that eToy.com was really controversial). My main example of this is the company I work for imaginet.com. There's a website out there called imagnet.com, that's a porn site, but do you see us threatening them? No.
Wanting to buy the domain from them is one thing, but if someone doesn't want to sell it, you don't go off suing them, especially when they were around first, and it's just some experimental web design site. Jeez, don't these people check all domain name options BEFORE deciding on one? Guess they figured they could just "eliminate" the competition when they got big enough.
Makes me sick.
I have received over 5 spam email messages from this group even though I tell them to stop contacting me. I can sympathize with their problem, but all I have ever seen from them has been net abuse. I hope they win, but they aren't going to do it by trying to raise "grassroots" awareness through spam.
-- Solaris Central - http://w
Well, it may not do much good, but by registering their domain, they do give up some privacy. whois lists their billing and administrative contact as admin@ETOYS.COM, and their technical contact (which would probably be the least helpful) as hostmaster@ETOYS.COM. One of these would probably be able to answer questions as to who to contact for "customer service", comments &cetera and their legal department.
;)
Or, you could always send them a letter.
etoys (ETOYS3-DOM)
3100 Ocean Park Blvd., Suite 300
Santa Monica, CA 90405
US
They might even care. (but probably not).
Or start a rumor. That's the address that Santa lives at. spread it among the children.
Pound! Bang! Bin! Bash! is this a shell script or a Batman comic?
If eToys.com is REALLY interested in kids getting confused they should change their name. They did not do due dilligence when they picked their online retailer name. They picked a name 1 character away from a name that was already in use. The shareholders of eToys.com should suffer because their management team made a mistake. Why should an already established web site suffer for the blunders of a jonny com lately company onto the net. Makes me sick. -weld
While I do agree that eToys is being incredibly
stupid about the whole thing and will, at least
in the short term, suffer a deseverd image
problem for it, there is another aspect that
amuses me.
I *really* loathe sites that are 'bleeding edge"
and _demand_ I get some plug-in (or enable
javascript or java or...). So in a way, I think
it's kinda neat one site is getting a swift
kick in the tucus for saying it the way they
said it.
It's almost a win-win situation. But eToys are
still the bigger jerks of this lot. My money will
be going elsewhere.
I am fighting this! There will be a hearing in Cambridge, Mass on January 10, 2000.
Injured geek wins against Mattel, Mattel still retaliates!
Time to find out just how influential Slashdot really is...
I think it's about time that Slashdot got a new section to deal with I-want-that-domain lawsuits. :(
there isn't a Santa Claus. He ran afoul of of santaclaus.com, and was forced to change his name back to Kris Kringle. next day he recieved a letter threatning lawsuits unless he changed his name, signed CEO Kringle.com. St. Nick, Sinter Klaus, they all were taken by someone on the net.
broke, depressed, and alone, he sits at home at the north pole, watching Direct TV...
Cause no one wants presents from John Doe.
How often do things like this happen? How many companies do we threaten to boycott for bullying the little guy? Can we even keep track of them all? Of course not.
But we have the power of computers and databases on our side. Why not organize a list of online corporations we have gripes with, and interface it with client-side software that will warn us when we attempt to visit "sanctioned" sites?
ALERT: Amazon.com is currently filing a lawsuit against Barnes and Noble for violating their patented concept of "one click shopping." Though they do have a legal patent on the technology, this is an obvious non-innovation, and this patent and lawsuit is considered by many to be abusive and frivolous. Visit http://link.to.the/news/story.html for more information. Do you wish to proceed?
We can't personally keep tabs on every corporate bully, but to organize and be a veritable force for companies to be wary of, perhaps we can convince them our voices really do matter.
One might worry such organization would be forced to make overly subjective decisions, and eventually become political, but the choice would always be left to the user. The software and database would prodive the information (hopefully a link to a [mostly] impartial news story), and the user would choose, based on the information provided, whether to personally avoid the site or not. Personally, I imagine many would opt to support these boycotts.
Every dollar the monstrous corporations have came from someone's pocket.
Why not set up a Web site mirroring program to download and redownload the Etoys.com Web site? Direct it's out put to /dev/null and juste suck their bandwidth. It is not illegal to browse a site all day long is it? You know what happens if enough people do it.
I hate lawyers.
I suggest we send this article to all our friends and ask them to pass it along to others....
And please email or snail mail etoys and let them know what you think.
I certainly will do so.
Boycott etoys.com
I was wondering, could'nt they just transfer the domain name to someone in another country and run the server from there?
You've written a great article jamie. Concise and well thought out articles is what slashdot needs more of.
Keep it up!
I recently cancelled all my backordered goods at Amazon.com too. Guess I have yet another "e-retailer" to put on the "never shop at" list. The web should be free of stupid lawyer threats and the even worse process patents. Vote with you pocket books, and make damn well sure your friends and coworkers understand the need to do so.
EToys is infringing on EToy's reputation as serious performance artists. By continuing to operate at the www.etoys.com domain they are confusing the potential audience of EToy. They are obviously siphoning off hits from this successful site, which had existed for two years, just to sell a few more toys. Countersuit! Countersuit!
Mattel is doing the same to me. They paid over $140k in a judgment, but they continue with a countersuit. When this is over, I will be entering a new lawsuit against them for retaliation (under the ADA, FMLA, etc) and abuse of process.
Injured geek wins against Mattel, Mattel still retaliates!
I'm sure the government actually likes us posting to SlashDot, because if we're posting here, we're not actually DOING anything.
Oh: to see what's really happening in Seattle (jack-booted Gestapo thugs tear-gassing and rubber-bulleting peaceful protestors while allowing anarchists to do whatever they want in order to get an excuse to invoke martial law, which they did in a 40 block area of central Seattle), see the links on Salon's "Anti-WTO Activist Web Pages" page. Now THAT is subversive. Slashdot? Get real!
-E
Send mail here if you want to reach me.
Administrative Contact: (310) 664-8100 Voice
one word: dialpad
Is my computer the only one that experiences complete unrecoverable lockup when visiting toywar.com?
I'm using IE5 on WinNT with SP5.
while true ; do wget -O/dev/null -r http://www.etoys.com/ ; done
-
<SIG>
"I am not trying to prove that I am right... I am only trying to find out whether." -Bertolt Brecht
<sig>Guvf vf abg n frperg zrffntr
They say right on the page "We also appreciate constructive criticism and hearing about anything that dissatisfies you about our site. Good, bad, or ugly, we want to hear what you really think." So, Let 'em know! http://www.etoys.com/cgi-bin/cs_print_page.cgi?men upage=1&pagename=t10 Then watch your back for the etoys.com police....snicker...
These claims are discussed in the Village Voice article -- they are pure FUD. "digital hijack" sounds bad but it was the name of a pretty tame demonstration of the innacuracy of search engines. The "shares" were another artistic project which no-one could confuse with etoys stock. They are scraping the bottom of the barrel looking for mud to sling.
-
<SIG>
"I am not trying to prove that I am right... I am only trying to find out whether." -Bertolt Brecht
<sig>Guvf vf abg n frperg zrffntr
My first encounter with these guys happened when they introduced their affiliate program... They have even more loopholes for screwing affiliates out of money than average. It was pretty obvious right then what sort of bastards they are.
Etoys stock has fallen from $70 to $55 since Monday, the day this ruling was given.
-
<SIG>
"I am not trying to prove that I am right... I am only trying to find out whether." -Bertolt Brecht
<sig>Guvf vf abg n frperg zrffntr
Etoys has a "website problem" form you can fill out at the following address.
I used it to complain.
http://www.etoys.com/cgi-bin/cs_print_page.cgi?
Is there anywhere that you can find out about what companies are being naughty (like etoys, hasbro, amazon etc...) and why they are on the site, and why we should boycott them, or write them nasty letters telling them off?
If not, I think there should be.
iain
I fell that the Internet should not be allowed to be patented in anyway!
If you are making a new kind of product then sure patent it.
But in the way of the Internet copyrights should only be allowed.
---------------------------------------
Down with Internet Taxes!
etoyes.com and sue etoys.com for $6,000,000,000 for infringing on my copyright.
I just browsed through the etoys site and found a contacts page with email addresses.
I would suggest that we all contact investor relations and politely explain our displeasure. You may wish to point out to them that they are not only wrong, but they are also throwing away potentially very lucrative business from computer-savy young professionals. I think this is just the kind of things investors would want to know about; we should let them know.
In Indiana it is illegal to make a monkey smoke a cigarette.
I'm feeling like che guevara after an ambush.......THESE PEOPLE NEED TO SUFFER.....and if their's a time for Quixotian actions in defense of the meek---this is it!!!! BURN ETOYS!!!
FYI, there are several other registries than NSI now, including, among others, France Telecom ...
I have to laugh at all the perverts who end up at my site after doing a search for the Mitchell Brothers' adult theatre. (I mention them on my page because of the great (G-rated) murals on the outside of their building.)
What if all the gazillions of Slashdot readers went to the eToys web site but didn't buy anything? If their webmaster checked the logs, he/she would see tons of hits, all originating from this story. Presumably they would check out the story and think "Omigod, look at all these people that aren't buying anything, and it's because we screwed eToy!"
Normally, they might just think, "Oh, the only people that will really care about eToy are a handfull of geeks, so we can go harass eToy," but if they see how many people really do read Slashdot, they might just change their minds.
Just a thought. In any case, I'm going to slide on over and not buy anything. (Funny thing is, I was going to buy some toys for my niece from them, until now.)
Stupid people will be persecuted to the fullest extent allowed by law.
I'm sorry but I'm not buying into this whole "holy war" mentality here. There are no censorship or freedom issues here. The only issue/excuse that can be put forth is that etoy had spent a lot of time building up goodwill and a following at that domain. From what I see, etoys offered to pay them for that. This is a business dispute. If this was some disgruntaled former employee or someone who thought etoys gave them a raw deal and/or had poor business practices, ironically, I would have more support for them despite the fact they would have less of a legal case. Hell I would even have more sympathy for them if etoys was trying to shut them down because they wanted them out of business. But even that's not the case as etoys has offered as a suggestion moving the domain to something else (and money). The lesson learned here is not that when a big company makes an offer, you should take it. The lesson is that you don't tell them f*ck off. From my legal experiences in the past, I can tell you that had etoy offered to pull the word "F*uck" from their homepage they would still be in negotiations not in court and there's even a chance that they could have charged etoys to keep any questionable material off of the homepage with a link back to etoys and still kept their website. That's how business works. Also, sorry to be this critical but I had to point out some of the problems with your facts. As somone who bought some etoys stock I keep watch on it at Yahoo's finance area. Your claim that "A" potential customer noticed the word "F*uck" on the etoy site is wrong. Many people noticed it and short sellers used that all over the message boards trying to scare people into thinking that etoys, a kids site, would have the word "F*uck" on their homepage. I'm sure etoys (and I would imagine etoy) received many complaints about this. You also state that you couldn't get a response from etoys customer service page? All public companies have contact information published all over the web. You could have spoken to investor relations or the PR people which are the people who handle these kinds of inquries not some customer service flunkie. That excuse is about as poor as saying that you sent an email to scase@aol.com and didn't get an immediate reponse.
I think this should be moderated up...money speaks to anything incorporated...
Dan
Just a thought...
Want to get eToys where it really hurts? Contact your local media outlets. Local TV affiliates are always looking for cheap news. If they get enough emails/phones calls/etc and it is a quiet news day, they might just run something primetime. Such comsumer news would counter millions of dollars of marketing for those *#@$*$#$% at eToys.
After reading this, I decided to email the folks at Etoys.com, and here's what I wrote:
t .shtml
To Whom It May Concern,
I have recently read several articles concerning your company and it's lawsuit against eToy.com. In hopes that what these stories purport is false, or maybe mis-represented, I would like to ask you what you stance is concerning eToy.com, and what actions you have taken against them.
The articles concerned were :
http://slashdot.org/yro/99/12/01/2156208.shtml
http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/9948/barlian
These articles do not show your company in a good light, and it is believed that a great offense against the community at large has been committed by your company. This is the lowest and worst type of internet abuse, at least what's reported in the articles. Please debunk these statements if they are untrue.
-----
Anyway, the idea was to see what they'll say. I figure you give em a chance to air their side of the story, although Im not terribly optimistic.
Anyway, don't send email to legal@etoys.com, it won't get there. Use service@etoys.com, or so their mail servers, to get to them.
If I get a response, I'll ask them to allow me to post it, or I'll just paraphrase and put it up. Enjoy.
I sent this to Jonathan Cutler, Public Relations Manager (jcutler@etoys.com). If you disagree with eToys stance, I suggest you do the same:
I have read recent reports of a case concerning the forced shutdown of etoy.com by etoys.com. When I first heard this I thought it was nothing more than a copy cat company trying to steal the thunder from etoys.com. If this were the case I would have backed your decision to take up legal action against etoy.com. However after reading what etoy.com was about, I became quite surprised that a company such as yours, with so much money in the bank would even care to take action against a site that is little more than people doing experimental design and having fun on the web.
I think what eToys needs to realize is that the web is a FREE place. Free in the sense of free speach. Unfair business pratice is one thing, but the web has been, and will always be about Open Information for anyone. The fact that etoy.com was running over two years before eToys.com and the fact that is has NOTHING to do with eToys nor is it a direct threat to eToys.com makes me wonder where your best interests are going after and attacking them.
I'm not void of these problems myself. I work at a company trying to make its name on the web, Imaginet.com, and we're doing VERY well on the web. Imagine my surprise when I found out that the domain imagnet.com was a porn site. But did we go after them to try to shut them down? NO. Why? Because that's not fair and that's NOT RIGHT. You cannot sue someone simply because they domain names are "similar".
I also own a personl domain, vitaflo.com. Vitaflo.com is an experimental graphic design and open source information site. Now imagine that in a year from now, someone sets up vitaflos.com, starts selling Farm equipment, and gets rich off of it. Then someone goes to my website, sees a swear word or some "unappropriate" material and then vitaflos.com tries to shut me down. Would I be pissed? You bet. Would I fight it? Till the day I died. This is exaclty what your company has done to etoy.com.
It makes me sad to see a company with so much potential throw so much of it down the drain. You can be sure I will never shop at your site ever again, and I have written to everyone I know to tell them the same (as I'm sure many others have done that have heard this news). As the PR Manager, I think it should be your job to keep the companies best interests in mind in how it deals with the public. This is NOT in your best interest. You will lose a lot more money playing the roll of "Bully" than you ever would have by just ignoring etoy.com. I am hopeful this letter, and letters like it, will help to reverse this aweful trend in online lawsuits that has been occuring so much recently. Set the precident, be the one company to actually LISTEN to its customers. We will all thank you if you do.
Thank you for your time,
-Brent Gustafson
Why are we blaming etoys instead of the judge?
Maby if we all send something like this to our e-buddies:
Subject: Don't buy from ETOYS.COM this christmas !
This is just a short notice to make you aware of how big multibillion dollar
companies screw the little folks. (European artists in this case).
Short version: in 1994 a group of European artists founded etoy.com, a site they played with to express their creativity on the web.
Now in 1999 a company that dates their presence back to 1997 has suceeded in getting www.etoy.com off the web by using there excessive force of money and lawyers.
You can read the full story at:
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=99/12/01/215
The message is this Don't buy anything at etoys.com this year !!
Please pass this message on until the end of december.
--
Why pay for drugs when you can get Linux for free ?
echo '[q]sa[ln0=aln80~Psnlbx]16isb572CCB9AE9DB03273snlbxq' |dc
Of course, technically, you could run a domain redirector at www.etoy.com, but I don't think the judge would see the distinction as clearly. Heh.
eToys CEOs are Mariam Naficy & Varsha Rao -- address your letters to them, so they at least get past the customer service level.
-
<SIG>
"I am not trying to prove that I am right... I am only trying to find out whether." -Bertolt Brecht
<sig>Guvf vf abg n frperg zrffntr
They won't get any money anyway, so what's the point?
Stupid people will be persecuted to the fullest extent allowed by law.
This is the same as the govt's refusal to prosecute bigomy cases among those 3+ marriage partners who practice a faith that allows marriage between to more than one person. They KNOW bigomy laws can be struct down under Amendment Number One's gurantee of freedom of religion. Of course, they'll use "threat of prosecution" to scare the multiplt partners out of the marriage or to attack one another legally, but if they all stick to their guns, the gov't WILL back down so they can keep their unconstitutional laws on the books and maybe scare someone else with them.
Remember, illegal, or unconstitutional laws CAN'T BE REMOVED if challenges by those being prosecuted aren't allowed to happen.
The article says these etoy guys operate out of Europe (doesn't say which country i think). So just HOW the HELL does a Californis judge have jurisdiction over them????
Do they reside in CA now? The article led me to belive that they are still in Europe. Is the server hosting the site in the US somewhere?
If the answer to both these is no, why don't they tell that jackass of a judge to get stuffed, make sure the server's in Europe somewhere nicely out of his jurisdiction (preferbaly in a European country where etoys is not incorperated), and go on their merry way?
IANAL. But I don't see how some two bit yokel of a judge plans to enforce a fine on foriegn nationals who don't reside in his jurisdiction.
john
Imagine all the people...
OK let's say I'm one of the artists at etoy.com right, chilling at the office with my fellow artists then suddenly we get the offer from eToys.com.
Here's where I go into logical reasoning mode and postulate what happens if we refuse and they take legal action.
"Ok guys what could happen if this goes to a court or similar regulatory body?".
Well the judge on one hand sees a bunch of artistic types who use profanity on their website and on the other hand sees a legitimate business. Score 1 against us...(I've been to court that is how judge-types think.)
Secondly what hapens if we win a.) eToys.com (a legitimate business) stands to loose a number of customers who come to our site by accident and loose some reputation among the unknowledgeable b.) eToys.com is decides to forego the website and creates a new one, has to start a new marketing campaign and maybe change its stock ticker. What if we loose...well the judge says buy another domain for $70 bucks and do what is currently done at slashdot.com . So the judge has a choice of costing a legitimate business thousands to millions of dollars or costing a bunch of artists $70.
I wonder what he'll choose?
At this point my friends and i accept the stock, sell it, buy ourselves some kick ass SGI boxes and some killer software and keep doing what we do at another domain name.
PS: I can't get over the way people on slashdot make it seem like a domain name is some necessity of life like food, air, water or shelter. We were not born with them and they'll be gone before we die. So what's the fscking point of all this ruckus. If a new domain naming scheme comes into effect tomorrow all domain names will be null N void. If slashdot changed it's name to geeknews.com or something all that would happen is a bunch of geeks would have to update their bookmarks. no crying, no sickness, no famine, no plague, just updated bookmarks.
sheeesh!
Bad Command Or File Name
On that Salon page, he whines that the WTO is putting Americans out of work, when the unemployment level in the U.S. is at the lowest level ever. This guy thinks he can be President? (Then again, look at the two front-runners. They think they'd make good presidents too.)
- 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?"
The URL for the feedback page at etoys is:- http://www.etoys.com/cgi-bin/cs_print_page.cgi?men upage=1&pagename=t10 Let them know what you think.
This guy is already suing Lilly Industries Inc., a fortune 500 company, for threatening him with a lawsuit when they had no grounds, hoping he will cave in to the corporate aggression. This press release explains it better.
My eyes musta moved up a row when looking at the list of idealab companies
-
<SIG>
"I am not trying to prove that I am right... I am only trying to find out whether." -Bertolt Brecht
<sig>Guvf vf abg n frperg zrffntr
Instead, how about adding some dissenting voices to the web browser, similar to Slashdot moderation (i.e. don't delete the junk, but rather moderate it down to render it invisible to most users)? When looking up a particular domain or URL, the browser could check for alternative opinions on that particular address (using some distributed database scheme), and act on them according to the user's preferences. For example, a host look-up for ebay.com could be accompanied by a PTR or TXT look-up for ebay.com.dissent.net, and if some records are found, they may refer the browser to comments, criticism, spoofs, overlay graffitti or something else of relevance to the target address.
Compare it to asking your local librarian for a copy of Dante's Inferno, which she gladly provides, while saying "by the way, you may also want to read Gary Larson's hilariously funny spoof of Dante's Inferno", since she knows you appreciate a good laugh now and then. Your browser should be your librarian. In this way, if you ridicule a commercial site according to the given protocol, and the users agree to read your satire, it should be a lot more difficult than it is today for lawyers to cry "trademark dilution".
Sure, developing another browser isn't done in an afternoon, but neither is supplanting the present domain hierarchy, and it would be really neat to be able to support dozens or even hundreds of alternate, independent pages associated with a single domain name or URL. Also, fewer users would be dependent on their sysadmins to install such a browser for them, than would have to file requests for an alternate set of root servers to be considered.
According to etoys' latest filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1052245/000 0912057-99-005594.txt Edward C. Lenk is the "President, CEO, and Uncle of the Board". The email addresses given on their website seem to have a pattern of firstinitial lastname for user names. Wonder if elenk@etoys.com would work.
http://www.networksolutions.com/cgi-bin/whois/whoi s/ Check out the above website. Get the e-mail addresses. Complain, as I have done.
OK let's say I'm one of the artists at etoy.com... [snip] ... my friends and i accept the stock, sell it, buy ourselves some kick ass SGI boxes and some killer software and keep doing what we do at another domain name.
PS: I can't get over the way people on slashdot make it seem like a domain name is some necessity of life like food, air, water or shelter. We were not born with them and they'll be gone before we die. So what's the fscking point of all this ruckus.
In Germany they first came for the Communists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak up becaues I wasn't a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn't speak up becaue I was a Protestant.
Then they came for me - and by that time no one was left to speak up.
-- Pastor Martin Niemoller
Kaa
Kaa
Kaa's Law: In any sufficiently large group of people most are idiots.
Jerks.
In fact, there are many root nameservers; one for each country out there (.de, .uk, .ie, .au, etc) and the US government and military do their own thing too.
http://nic.gov
http://nic.mil
I'm assuming that either NSI points requests to them, or local nameservers know to ask them (based on the top-level of the request). So this kind of this is already happening, it's just that alternic.org is not in the 'official list' or whatever. Maybe ICANN has something to do with it.
He could give me one of his bass guitars and I'd be happy
Read the story at this link, which was published before /. got in on the publicity fiasco. http://www.citypages.com/databank/20/991/article82 60.asp Eric Anondson (too lazy to login)
Although it would be nice to give the http://www.etoys.com site the slashdot effect for Christmas.
hmm, it seems the legal@ and abuse@ addresses are bouncing, anyways here is what I said:
I am writing in regards to your recent childish behavior towards the Internet
artist group EToy. Such a clear abuse of money and power is very disappointing,
and entirely uncalled for. Neither they nor their site did anything to warrent
your attack. While the name similarity was unfortunate, it was just that,
unfortunate. Nothing entitles you to a totally unambiguous domain name,
and if you were concerned with this, you should have chosen another name.
EToy.com was in existance for over TWO YEARS when you registered the
domain.
I, and numerous friends and relatives who I have spoken with, will not be
patronizing your site this Christmas season, or anytime soon. While I am
confident that the decision against EToy will not stand in any court with
a knowledgeable judge, I ask you to voluntarily stop action against EToy
and win back some small part of the reputation and respect you have lost.
-chris (gandalf@darkcorner.net)
They are not suing over rights to the name, they are suing over losing customers who mistype the name and see profanity. For the first time in one of "these" cases, I think the plaintiff is right. And I don't think it violates anyone's "free speech" rights to insist that they keep the root of their domain "clean", especially when they know full well that there is a potential for lots of young kids to be going there by mistake. Plenty of room on the other pages for breasts, F-words, etc.
To: abuse@etoys.com
CC: postmaster@etoys.com
CC: manager@etoys.com
CC: root@etoys.com
How could you go and try and sue a company that had their name before you even existed? They have the legal right, not you. How can you go and squash the rights of other people? I will personally guarantee you that I will never, ever shop at etoys.com, and that I will inform all my friends, relatives, and any other people I speak with, to not shop at your site. If you were afraid some people would misspell your domain name, and not get to the intended site, you should have worked out a linking policy with etoy.com, just like how diamondmm.com and diamond.com have a linking policy.
You disgust me.
---
--
Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
This should make judges think twice before they pass those rediculous injunctions...
Set a precedent for other companies who have witnessed that they can bully other groups around because they have more money and better lawyers.
stick it to etoys.com!!!
You're suggesting that we give up on the offending system. Which is sort of the right idea. But we live inside of this system and its very hard to get out of it. The changes that need to be made, need to be made by govenerments, and the UN, etc... and they've been trying... but they're trying to fix things that arent wrong.
:) Its people who run the internet and run the world. Very few people are actually giving the orders - are actually thinking for themselves, for whats good. We need social disobedience on a large scale to let the people who implement decisions know what we want. Show them what is wrong. It worked for millions of poor indian people against the brittish... and its the same idea... the numerous poor against the few rich. We can do it.
:) Join the Electronic Frontiers Organizations! We need an organized voice of truth, not of anger or frustration :)
It turns out that the people who make the most noise are generally the people that are disgruntled with the current system... These people have made the polititions think that free speech and free thought are not what we want. Polititians must think by now that we want to be babysat - we dont want to think. We want things organized, we want parents again! And corporations are happy to fill the role. Now, they've gotten the wrong idea. We want freedom to think - we want democracy back! Its of course then our responcibility to make some noise. Changing DNS systems is a nice idea but infeasable to imlement very well. I think what we need is more of an online unity. More of an online union of sorts. of course, without union dues
What do we want to do? I think that we need public protest, stuff that gets on the news. People have been talking about the WTO issue online forever, but now people know more about it now that its on the news. Public protests need to be organized. Massive letter writing campaigns. Elect people who arent so dumb! hehe
Gotta wonder which totalitarian hole you've been living in all these years? Somebody screws with me the way they've been screwing with etoy, and I'll damn well tell 'em to "f*ck" off if I want to.
Anybody who doesn't like it can bite me.
And no, I'm not a pimply-faced (sub-)teen.
I think what we need to do is send a _polite_ letter to etoys explaining why we will no longer purchase their products.
l ):
It might be best to email their Public Relations Manager - this is an issue that should be of some concern to him, considering the implications.
I found this contact information on their website (http://www.etoys.com/html/about_information.shtm
Company Contact Information
eToys
3100 Ocean Park Blvd.
Suite 300
Santa Monica, CA 90405
(310) 664-8100
service@etoys.com
News Media Contact
Ken Ross
Vice President of Communications
(310) 664-8410
kross@etoys.com
Jonathan Cutler
Public Relations Manager
(310) 664-8550
jcutler@etoys.com
Investor Relations Contact
Suki Shattuck
Director of Investor Relations
(310) 664-8356
ir@etoys.com
Customer Service Contact
If you would like to speak to a customer service representative about your order, please call us at 1-800-GO-ETOYS (1-800-463-8697). We are open 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
If you are calling from outside the United States, please dial
1-310-664-8530.
reverend lola
the titanium sheep
provider of steel wool
If you, like me, do not agree with etoy.com and not like what they are doing. I think you should tell them that.
service@etoys.com
Subject number is customer service for Etoys. I am an E-toys customer ( up untill today ). I called them and the person I spoke with was interested and reasonable and said I would get a call back. Perhaps if more people called, they may realize the scope of discontent with their actions. ( at $.10 per minute LD 800 charges )
enough is too much
The problem here, as pointed out before, (er, okay, problems):
1. etoy fails to be much in the way of money, which is why they yanked their site fast when fined 10k per day...they don't have it. The only 10k they had, they donated...they're just a bunch of guys doing performance art with a web page.
2. Most of the folks being sued by corps will NOT be able to afford the law support to counter Corporate attacks. And you can't insist that, say, ICANN provide lawyers for such a thing (to try to get the legal precedence, etc.) since ICANN itself is non-profit, and thus is also out of it's league in terms of fighting corp lawyer battles...
Listen to me Peter, I want this bench. You go sit on that bench over there, and if you're good I'll tell you the rest of
Now we need information.
.org, .com -- pick one" thing is a bit limited as a global namespace. Once we have our alternate backbone setup, we can use dig and only do business with those who have registered in our database (free if you can prove why you should have the domain, with maybe a 10$ US maintenace fee every few years for server hardware).
We'd need a chain of 24/7 DNS servers (perhaps the slashdot.org, freshmeat.net, etc, servers). Anyone with a good static IP and Linux should be able to contributed. How will we setup GTLDs? The ".net,
I mean, we'd be cheaper than the Internic, and we've certainly got enough hardware between us to do it. Heck, we could even add a gateway feature to let through domains not found in our DNS servers come from an internic area (thus we only get what we don't have, and don't have to worry about the internic people trying to overlap our domains).
Am I the only one who thinks this could work?
---
--
Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
It's easy to say 'eToys is a massive corporation,
they must be evil for doing what they're doing,'
but ignore the lawyerspeak and the overheated
rhetoric from the 'defenders of free speech' and
think about these things:
1. Look at the etoy content. It's pretty easy
to see that they were screwing with eToys, and
having fun with the inevitable confusion their
domain name generates.
2. eToys has to defend itself, even if the
defense seems stupid, against this sort of thing.
3. eToys is on the Good Team. Check their
servers. Now check toysrus.com's servers. It'd
be a shame to slap down a pioneer of open-source
commercial systems just because they have sharp-
fanged lawyers.
It looks like a placeholder for some domain name prospector. Feh.
---
--
Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
Not "speach," as slashdot posters seem to want to make it.
People, if you really want to defend it... learn how to spell it first.
For the sort who are interested, the max ping packet size argument my ping let me send was 65468, and the command to use it is: ping -s 65468 www.etoys.com -q The -q is to ignore the crap on the screen.
Otey... let me get this straight: The whole point of a URL is that it is a UNIQUE pointer to a location (btw i don't mean that the u in url stadns for 'unique'; it doesnt.. i mean there's a one to one onto mapping of active url's to viewable web pages...). So along comes Company XY11 and buys XY11.com or whatever. Before, after, it doesnt matter when, some company called XYLL buys XYLL.com ; XY11 wants to sue XYLL now for several reasons, only one of which is really an argument in court, and in this case it shouldn't even win. REASON #1) because they can. Never underestimate how vicious the business world is; the higher the stakes, the more vicious. REASON #2) because induhviduals will mistake the 1's in XY11's name for L's, and thus a portion of XY11's marketing budget is paying for a large number of ppl to visit XYLL's site (and worse, these're statistically the somewhat less informed... afahmaep) REASON #3) Trademark infringement. Similar names were once considered close enough to be "the same enough"... like cokacola or pepshi. anti#1) this doesn't apply to a court of law. anti#2&3) Think about this one, it's very key: XY11 would be happy if XYLL's site never existed because before it XYLL.com went up, induhviduals would type in the "wrong" URL (xyll.com = XYLL.COM) and see only the 404. Then, said induhvidual (if sufficiently evolved) might go "oops, maybe those were 1's not l's" (that's a one and an L) and magically get the right page. So in effect, XY11 has it's bases covered at this stage; most ppl go to their site, and everythings fine. Dumb ppl go to a 404 page, then perhaps figure it out. IN EFFECT XY11 is 'using' BOTH url's because the real page contains their information; the "other" page contains the 'null' information 404. But along comes XYLL.com and suddenly that null becomes another site. Now, it gets sticky since both sites happen to peddle similar wares in a similar way. But that doesn't change the fact that XY11 bought ONE domain: XY11.com XY11 did NOT buy the other domain, XYLL.com hence the lawsuit, wherein XY11 will argue that their right to be dissimilar is being trod on by XYLL. Well kiddies, welcome to the real #^%&ing world. If Pablo's pizza has (666)555-1248 and Pan's pizza has (666)555-1249, then Pablo's pizza can sit on a spike for all the court cares. You see, URL's aren't like speech; they aren't fuzzy, but rather they are discrete (also finite in number per number of characters, that's part of why we pay) and they are DISTINCT. How about I go claiming whutever.com urls with names attached to technologies or methods that are up and coming? a year down the line some multibillion giant decides to start up a subsidiary called whatever.com.... if eToys.com wins then that precedent says that I can sue the subsidiary.. and I should be able to represent yself and spend NOTHING on lawyers because there is an explicit precedent. Hmm, do you think I would win? no, of course not unless I had billion$ to spend on lawyers. eToys.com is being plain greedy. and ESPECIALLY since eToy.com was there FIRST, they have no $%&$%#^ right to complain. Saddest of all, the real reason eToys.com decided to pursue this action is reason #1. They Can, and I would likely guess probably Will, win this case. Not because they are right, but because they are OJ. (Didn't see that oj ref comin', didja? 8^P ) If eToys.com wins this, I'll move to Nihon. Oh wait, I'm already going to do that. The totally gutless, and completely anonymous, Coward __________________________________________________ Do not discount what i am saying as false because i am insane; it is because i am insane that it is true. ~ Mal Let there be many Fives! ~ Eris Fiat Fnord. ~ Randoman
Although piiq.com aims to make things easier to find on the web, that's something
we won't be able to help you with.
Now, if you're ready to shop...
rodent...
rodent...
Tactical nuclear weapons are a viable alternative!
"Don't you love it when someone gives you a compliment or congratulates you on a job well done? Well, we love it too!"
Congratulations on shutting down your arch-nemesis, the evil etoy.com. I'm sure your legal dept. is absolutely ecstatic this Christmas season on dismembering a truly original and thought-provoking site.
"Good, bad, or ugly, we want to hear what you really think."
I shall refrain from telling you how I _really_ feel as it really isn't nice to repeat such language in polite company. I will say this, you be certain my holiday e-commerce will go elsewhere.
"Thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts with us!"
And thank you for showing your true colors as a soul-less agent of ill-will.
... then dump it. I'm having a blast shopping right now. My nieces and nephews WISH this was what they were getting for Christmas, but this cart won't make it to checkout!
Boy did they pick the wrong state to file in.
This is a classic example of a Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation (SLAAP), meant to force somebody w/ less money and power to shut up.
California has an anti-SLAAP statute. Look here for more details. Any lawyers in the crowd know about success rates in using this sort of statute?
Fuckhead.
No sig.
The following was sent to eToy's feedback form page at:m enupage=1&pagename=t10
http://www.etoys.com/cgi-bin/cs_print_page.cgi?
Dear eToys.com:
I will no longer shop at a toy store that actively engages in bullying behavior as eToys.com is demonstrating in its unsolicited dealings with "etoy.com". This is not the sort of example I would set for my children, directly or indirectly. I also have several legitimate complaints regarding my experience as a consumer at your site, but I am upset to the point that I will withhold them in order to deprive you of any potentially valuable feedback.
Until this public-interest matter can be amicably resolved, I will refrain from purchasing items from eToys.com and am actively encouraging others to follow suit.
Respectfully,
A concerned parent and internet community member
offers me $$$ to do something I'd rather not, the BEST thing to do is take the $$$, grab my ankles and squeal like a pig?
No. There are principles. I expect I disagree with many of those of eToy, but I can and do respect them as they actually *have* some and aren't willing to just knuckle under to the first knucklehead(s) with a few dollars to throw around.
I've got a couple of ideas and would like suggestions.
What I'd like to do is create the images, put them under an Open/Free license and when a project is getting assaulted, they can use the images and get them printed by a place like Iprint.com to raise funds, awareness etc.
LetterJ
Writing Geek/Pixel Pusher
jwynia@earthlink.net
http://home.earthlink.net/~jwynia
The Glass is Too Big: My Take on Things
I remember several years ago some companies going after "offensive" phone services that had 1-800 numbers that were very close to the phone numbers of the "legitimate" companies.
The complaint was that these "offensive" companies were tarnishing the reputation of the "legitimate" companies because their customers were mis-dialing. (I personally think this is a load of crap. A company no matter what their business should not depend on the stupidity of other individuals)
Does anyone remember the outcome of these cases? I would assume that any rulings in these cases could be easily applied to the etoy/etoys case.
I think that as eToy has a far more global appeal and eToys has an American centric appeal it would be far more sensible if eToys changed there URL to www.etoys.co.us That way there would be less confusion all round.
I love stacking my barbecues in the shed at the end of summer - you can't beat a bit of grill on grill action.
For any of you considering a virtual boycott, you should realize that a large percentage of the stock in the company is owned by Fingerhut, Inc.
Who in turn, is owned by Federated Direct (who owns stores like Macy's, Bloomingdale's, etc.)
Its a really sad thing to hear, considering we are being sent to the warehouse at least one day a week (until Christmas) to package etoys.com orders...
Um, yeah...I'm AC for a reason.
;)
My letter(with obvious influences from Scott's letter):
m ),it appears your lawsuit is on very shaky ground.
Please direct this message to the corporate officers and lawyers who work for/at etoys.com.
Much of my Christmas shopping will be done online this year. However, I will NOT be buying from eToys, in protest against the current lawsuit pending against the owners of "etoy.com". I will be sharing information about this petty lawsuit with my friends and family.
The world wide web is not the exclusive property of US businesses. eToys may have the financial clout to intimidate smaller organizations, but this does not mean that such intimidation is morally or legally correct. Given the guidelines at the ICANN site (http://www.icann.org/udrp/udrp-policy-24oct99.ht
I hope that the courts rectify this situation in favour of etoy.com. Nonetheless, your actions have ensured that I will never be a customer of your company.
Sincerely,
(My real name)
"Arrr! The laws of science be a harsh mistress." -- Bender
Maybe send off a few emails to various media, call up local/regional media outlets. If you wanna sock it to someone, nothing hurts more than getting the folks who buy ink by truckload (or airtime by the decade..) grinding at them.
A few geeks mean nothing. A few million folks who first hear of eToys as "oh, aren't they the ones who tried to stomp some group of artists?" means a lot.
Boycot etoys.com !!1 56208 .sig til Christmas!
see: http://www.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=99/12/01/2
Put it in your
Criminalize spam and telemarketing!
...is a good offence. Etoy owned their trademark for two years before etoys was registered, so one could make a case the corporate entity neglected due diligence, violated the artists' trademark, and therefore is guilty of not only trademark infringement when they set up their site, but also barratry by abusing the legal process (I'd bet the etoys lawyers did NOT show etoy was registered long before etoys). Etoy should find themselves a law firm who'll take the case on contingency.
Metabolife sued for slander based on a news piece that Susan had done. This appeared in the Boston Globe.
Injured geek wins against Mattel, Mattel still retaliates!
To whom it may concern,
I am writing to you in regards with the recent legal actions that you took against the etoy.com community.
Your attitude and actions in this case are short-sighted and attack the very essence of what the Internet is all about --people, commerce, community and information--. Obviously, the counselor behind this decision does not grasp the nature of the medium that pays his paycheck and makes the very existence of eToys possible.
What you are doing in this case is simply exploiting the American legal system to censure a voice that you do not agree with.
Such news goes a long way on the Internet and many people are judging your actions in this case. This judgement is independent of the American judge that issued the injunction. This judgement comes from the people on the Internet (let's call them netizens). As you very well know, these netizens are also your clientele base AND the source of investors most likely to purchase shares of ETYS.
Of course, this is my personnal point of view, as a netizen, on this situation. It is simply based on news articles from various sources on the Internet. I am a fairly objective and reasonnable person and make my living off electronic commerce myself. The point is, there are many others like me who have the same impressions and make similar judgements.
News of actions like your attack on etoy.com does not often make it to mainstream television and radio media but is readilly available to the netizens. A search for 'etoys' on Yahoo does not only bring up etoys.com but also news articles and links to competitors like Toys-R-Us and amazon.com.
I'm afraid this Xmas season, I'll have to take my money somewhere else. (BTW, I bought 100% of my 1999 Xmas gifts (approx.$1000usd) over the Internet.) You made a good name for yourself and certainly should protect it but etoy.com is not attacking your brand and their name is, also, their own. This sort of action does not protect your name, it tarnishes it. (and made me discover etoy.com which I hadn't even heard about before this incident!)
You have a few months to re-polish your image before I need to buy more toys and I don't think that court judgements and injunctions will affect my opinion.
Regardless of all this, I do wish you a very prosper future and a merry holiday season.
Sincerely yours,
{my real name}
Atlanta, GA.
Nobody says that I can't server domain names... So if get enough funding, we can build a secondary DNS. With that, I can make fare decisions on how to give out domain names and who gets it. And if someone is f*cking around, like eToys do, they'd loose their domain name. Who would like to register? Well, I can imagine, whe can copy most of IP information from some servers. And things like eToys, can have themselves. Once a set of DNS servers has been created at NAPs, maybe on Exodus or maybe on @Home OC FireRing I think thats what it is called, it would be possible to have ethical DNS EDNS. What about starting something like that up? DNS traffic is miniscule compared to the rest of the dataflow. If Internic denies rights to the artists as well. I would look into creation of such beast. Why? Same reason GNU was making free software, we can do the right thing!
I sent mail to: Toby Lenk, CEO and President tlenk@etoys.com Investor Relations ir@etoys.com Ken Ross, VP Communications kross@etoys.com Jonathan Cutler, PR Manager jcutler@etoys.com Idealab http://www.idealab.com/contact/ Also write to newspapers and news agencies and urge them to run the story. cybertimes@nytimes.com letters@latimes.com tips@wired.com letters@slate.com tips@news.com editor@adbusters.org newsonline@bbc.co.uk pancakej@washpost.com lisa_bowman@zd.com Urge national organizations to take up the issue: nospam@eff.org ncac@ncac.org webmaster@freeexpression.org http://www.aclu.org/feedback.html Direct them all to http://dmoz.org/Society/Activism/Media_Activism/Cu lture_Jamming/etoy/ for information
I sent mail to:
/ Culture_Jamming/etoy/
Toby Lenk, CEO and President
tlenk@etoys.com
Investor Relations
ir@etoys.com
Ken Ross, VP Communications
kross@etoys.com
Jonathan Cutler, PR Manager
jcutler@etoys.com
Idealab
http://www.idealab.com/contact/
Also write to newspapers and news agencies and urge them to run the story.
cybertimes@nytimes.com
letters@latimes.com
tips@wired.com
letters@slate.com
tips@news.com
editor@adbusters.org
newsonline@bbc.co.uk
pancakej@washpost.com
lisa_bowman@zd.com
Urge national organizations to take up the issue:
nospam@eff.org
ncac@ncac.org
webmaster@freeexpression.org
http://www.aclu.org/feedback.html
Direct them all to
http://dmoz.org/Society/Activism/Media_Activism
for information
I had a polite conversation with the operator there. First I confirmed with her that eToys.com is really sueing etoy.com. Then I confirmed with her that etoy.com has been in operation longer than eToys.com. She admitted both.
She claimed that eToys.com is not trying to shut them down, but trying to get them to move. She claimed that the case is not about trademark infringement, but that children might want toys and type-in "www.etoy.com" off of the top of their heads. She mentioned at least three times throughout the conversation how much pornography and cursing were on the etoy.com web page, and how bad it would be for children to see that. Basically eToys.com is claiming to be doing a public service, not defending a trademark.
You can believe that, or you can disbelieve that. I'm just reporting what the customer service department told me.
These idiot website hackers could lend some respectability to their cause if they did put their skillz to use in protesting an actual an actual cause instead of these fr33 m1tn1ck jobs.
With deep consternation I have followed the coverage of your recent and ongoing attempt to reverse hijack the domain name of internationally acclaimed art group etoy. According to a report in the Village Voice of 1-7 December 1999, you have sued etoy, claiming that the artists' domain etoy.com infringes on your trademark rights and constitutes unfair competition. I have followed the activities of etoy since their inception in 1994, when the world-wide web was nascent, and e-commerce and certainly eToys was not even around yet. etoy has received much international recognition, among other things the prestigious Golden Nica in the .net category in 1996.
As silly as the fight and profiteering over domains in the .com top level domain seem to someone not involved in e-commerce, and as objectionable the practice of domain name squatting may be, I find your disregard for the freedom of artistic expression on the world wide web downright despicable. It is plain to anyone that etoy does not engage in domain squatting, and to the best of my knowledge, eToys has not even been the "victim" of any other etoy art project. etoy's use of the .com top level domain is an integral part of their overall artistic conception. To prevent them from using the etoy.com domain would be to deprive them of a fundamental component of their artistic program. To my mind, eToys' lawsuit smacks of corporate bullying and borders on censorship.
Needless to say, I will not shop with eToys, will sell any mutual funds I own which invest in eToys, and will urge my family and friends to do likewise, until you drop your lawsuit.
Sincerely yours,
Richard Zach
My letter. After the note from myself, I included several pages of clippings from user comments here, each one of them expressing their desire to shop elsewhere.
_ _________________________
___________
Dir Sir,
The following are clippings from user comments on Slashdot pertaining to the court case between yourselves and etoy.com. This should save you some time and allow you to gather a basic idea as to the general feelings towards your company in light of the recent events.
I myself, having planned to do most of my Christmas shopping online, will NOT be shopping with eToys.com.
Also, as a brief reminder:
"Domain Name: ETOY.COM
Record created on 13-Oct-1995.
Domain Name: ETOYS.COM
Record created on 03-Nov-1997. "
Chris Ainsworth
EDR Technologies
___________________________________
--
driph
The whole lawsuit system in this country appears more broken day after day. It has clearly turned into first a system to make lawers rich by filing frivous 'class action' or personal injury lawsuits against large corporations and secondly into a means for corporations to take the freedoms away from individuals who can never afford a defence against billion dollar companies!
For the first issue perhaps there should be a compensation cap for lawers to keep them from these huge lawsuits; also redirect 'punative' damages somewhere where they will be more effective; the government or perhaps nonprofit organizations in the related field.
For the second... Our court system provides for the defendant in crimial cases a public defender in the event that the defendant cannot afford a defense themselves. Perhaps this should be extended to civil suits if defending the suit would place the defendant into financial hardship.
I am begining to fear we are losing the internet to big business. They've basically come in and started doing what they want and use the legal system as a tool to take what they want.
-- Greg
Slashdot, would a spell-checker for posting be too much to ask? It's not rocket science!
i just realized, if etoys.com offered to buy eoty.com, could it be argued that etoy.com was recognized as being legitimate? hope some legal gurus respond on this.
Maybe the /. effect will bring them to their knees.
You could put the regular 'net DNS first, and
the alternate one second, giving folks access
to both.
Mark
Actually, I could consider the actions of "etoys.com" to be a non-computerized denial of service attack against "etoy.com". A return DoS might be in order.
You're saying all the right things, but, please, no organizations! Try to think of a way to do that without rigid organizations of any sort (of course, our beloved Linux is a great example).
We do NOT need an organized voice of truth, because if this voice wins (against whom, by the way?), and becomes the dominant force, it will be the same again, just with different people on top. Once you organize something, it will become crap IMMEDIATELY
Clearly Etoys has bamboozled the judge. They have deliberately misinformed him over the rules governing Domain Names while scaring him with porno. Judges do not like to be lied to! They can and will charge liars with contempt of court including fines and jailtime.
The judge issued a preliminary injection in good faith to prevent harm. When it is explained that he was deceived and caused harm instead, some judicial outrage/coverup will occur. IMHO, it is important the the etoy defense team take a friendly stance toward the judge, explain how he was deceived in this admittedly arcane issue, and suggest contempt punishment. They could also countersue. If they don't approach this correctly, the judge will stonewall behind "porno".
Clearly etoys benefits immeasurably from this unjust preliminary injunction, and ought not be walk away with the loot.
-- Robert
Write to eToys "Uncle of the Board" Toby Lenk. For more information, go to the etoy ODP catgeory.
As the eToys people must have known this would generate negative publicity, and the stock value has plummeted recently, couldn't eToys shareholders sue the eToys officers for failure to prudently carry out their fiduciary responsibilities?
Interested in XFMail? New XFMail home page.
Jesus.. I never thought so many smart people would be so stupid. What the hell.. EToys.Com == Coperate America which then must equal EVIL. The mentality on here at times is so 3rd grade.
This post states that Look at the etoy content. It's pretty easy to see that they were screwing with eToys, and having fun with the inevitable confusion their domain name generates. among other points. This post states that etoys.com doesn't want kids to veiw porn. Understandable.
Then there are the low end of the mental food chain saying do a coordinated DoS attack,
someone advocating a hack of the site.. Nice website you have here... it would be a SHAME if something HAPPENED to it! 1, 2
I used to LOVE slashdot, but seeing the mentality of the readers AND artical posters, I'm sickened. News travels faster than light here. Its eassy not to read the whole story.
"It's not like your minds are as open as the source you love..." - Me to the majority of Slashdot.
I think this is a case of GOOD vs. EVIL... EVIL - a site (etoy.com) that contains, or had contained sado-masochistic pornography and endorsements of the Oklahoma City bombing and that fraudulently tries to confuse goodminded people with goodminded intentions into believing they are at a different URL. GOOD - a site (etoys.com) that promotes child safe content and runs on open source systems instead of that Microsoft/communistic stuff.
It seems to me that EToy, if they so desire, might be able to return the favor to Etoys - a suit, filed in the EU where they're based, because Etoys is diluting the recognizability of EToy.
After all, EToy is recognized as a source of cutting-edge art and social commentary, and it provably existed long before Etoys came along and picked up a similar name. Anyone who goes to the Etoys site seeking art is going to be just as confused as someone going to the EToy site looking for toys.
If the argument that the site is hosted in Switzerland and should be in the .ch top-level domain is allowed to stand, then a counter-argument that Etoys being hosted in California should be in the .ca.us domain is just as valid. In addition, the precedent that the case would set should bring massive support to EToy from other non-US companies with .com domains.
The movement from court to court seems remarkably like a case of shopping for a favorable judge, and for an international matter a California state court seems like a particularly inappropriate venue. The requirement that EToy be physically present in order to participate also seems onerous, particularly for a preliminary hearing - it would make sense for the trial itself, but not for the early stages.
As an interesting thought, can EToy go through discovery and depositions to investigate all records and email from the early days of Etoys in an attempt to determine whether the company was aware of the potential conflict? The depositions in particular would be better handled in a case in the EU - if the creators of EToy must travel to the the site of a US trial, it makes sense that the founders of Etoys be required to travel to the site of a Swiss one.
Even better, on thought: if in discovery it is found that Etoys was aware that they had no real legal standing, would that open them up to a barratry (abuse of lawsuits for intimidation purposes) suit?
If nothing else, they should be appealing for emergency permission to put up a page that describes the situation - "This site is down due to a lawsuit between Etoys, Inc. and the EToy artist group. To reach Etoys, the online toy seller, click {here}. To reach EToy, the artist group, click {here}."
Fencepost
just a little off
fencepost
just a little off
- The porn and OK bombing references were bits of art on their site. Art often makes points that are more controversial than your average TV commercial.
- Crushing speech with which one does not agree is evil.
- Using the argument that they're "protecting the public" when in fact they just want to steal the etoy.com name is even more evil
I know their programmers are Linux nuts and are also good guys, which is why it bothers me that I have to tell friends and family not to shop at eToys. It's obviously their lawyers who are idiots.I'm rambling now, but perhaps in tech companies, lawyers should be required to run lawsuits past the engineers first, to see how the online community will react.
I'm Peggy.
I don't get this. When news like this comes out everybody is all of a sudden angry at those "evil" corporations that try to make their own laws and do whatever they want to, yet when the story about the WTO protests came out people where asking where all the anger was coming from.
Why the change of opinion. Is it because people are just to short-sighted and forget things like this , which have been happening on a regular basis.
Here is a handy little script you might find useful... Just don't do anything like pipe the english dictionarty through it in a while(1) loop.
# ###### ./SearchEtoys.pl" ./SearchEtoys.pl >> results.txt )
= et&keyword=$kw");
/try another search/i ) {
*coughs*
----- Cut here ------
#!/usr/local/bin/perl
###############################################
#
# SearchEToys.pl
#
# A handly little perl script to search etoys.com to see if a toy is available.
# Simply execute the script and enter words or phrases to search for then hit enter
# SearchEtoys.pl will inform you if the search generated results.
#
# A real handy way to use this tool is in batch mode:
# Simpy enter the list of toys in a text editor one per line.
# Then issue a command like "cat mytoys.txt |
# Then come back and check the results later.
# For REALLY long lists you might want to pump the output to another file.
# ( cat mybiglistofwords.txt |
#
#
# To the friendly folks at etoys.com:
# Just LOVE your site!
# It's soooo much better than etoy.com.
# I'm so glad you silenced them!
use HTTP::Request;
use LWP::UserAgent;
$ua = new LWP::UserAgent;
while ( ) {
chomp;
&etoyssearch( $_ );
}
sub etoyssearch() {
my ($kw) = shift;
my( $req, $resp );
$req = HTTP::Request->new(GET => "http://www.etoys.com/exec/search.cgi?store=e&emp
$resp = $ua->simple_request($req);
if ( $resp->as_string() =~
print "Couldn't find it\n";
} elsif ( $resp->is_error ) {
print "Uh-Oh! Their web site returned an error code.... What a shame!\n";
} else {
print "Found it! Enter another!\n";
}
}
Rifting the Internet. I ask myself the same question, why hasn't anyone done it yet? I considered the idea of my own personal DNS'ing when I first learned how to work BIND, but dropped the idea out of boredom. Making an alternate DNS network might be harmful, though. Especially if businesses get the bright idea. People will be complaining about being part of "IBM's Internet" or "Microsoft's Internet" and such. This might be a good thing in the long run, for it will prove that the DNS system needs order, but on the other hand, it might as well destabilize the Internet and make it exactly what has been speculated by some: a "fad".
the real at&t mix
Take the recent case of plagiarist.org... the artist responsible for the site did a piece called Plagiarist Acquisitions in which plagiarist.org pretended to have "acquired" 27 of the world's largest corporations, in a spoof of neverending corporate takeovers. DuPont, one of the "acquired" companies, didn't like it. But, rather than sending a letter to plagiarist.org outlining legal reasons for their complaint, they took the shortcut - their legal department made phone calls and sent faxes full of largely irrelevant and unrelated documents to the artists' employer, saying that plagiarist.org had associated DuPont and the other companies with threatening and violent content. They sent a page from an unrelated website in which some entirely unrelated person called "plagiarist" had made death threats against the public relations director of the Jewish Defense league. When the artist, forced to remove the piece by the employer (who evidently was serving as ISP) posted a commentary documenting the situation, DuPont sent another fax requesting that be removed too (though that appears to still be there.) A more detailed story of this is archived at rhizome.org.
This type of censorship has been going on for years... take a look at this 1996 Associated Press article about the PR Firm of Middleberg and Associates, who evidently take pride in helping corporations intimidate people commit acts of free speech. And Markwatch a big-brotheresque corporate trademark monitoring service, who takes pride in spying on every nook and cranny of the web and newsgroups for mentions of product trademarks.... have you checked your web server logs for their sniffers? They are in mine!
Basically, the Corporations have decided they are going to do to dissenting voices on the Internet what they did to Public Access TV, and it is going to take massive and continual Bad PR about them to turn the tide.
i called etoys' customer service (1-800-463-8697) to see if i could register a complaint with them regarding the etoy/etoys litigation. the customer service rep said that they were not allowed to comment, and wouldn't even take my name and number. he did, however, say that i could send mail to service@etoys.com.
so, i will.
-cgw-
From reading some previous comments, I've thought about starting such a database.
I was thinking of starting as a simple website, then defining a protocol and writing client and server software, maybe a browser plugin, option in Konqueror and Mozilla, etc.
I like the idea.
Let's see, you've sued etoy.com because one of your customers went to their site accidently and you think you lost a sale.
Well, get ready to sue yourselves.
I was going to buy a couple hundred dollars worth of stuff from your site next week for the numerous children in my family, as well as friends' children here in town. You've lost far more sales by losing me as a customer, both present and future, than etoy.com could have ever cost you.
Oh well, KayBee toys (a clueful toy store with an internet presence at www.kbkids.com) will be getting an extra order this Christmas.
Hey, good luck getting blood out of that turnip.
Michael
Do you have ESP?
Is etoy anything like ytok? That would certainly make it time-relevant.
-Chris
I support etoy.com cause.
/. shouldn't be associated with instigation to harm any web site.
But
etoys have more money and used it incorrectly.
/. affiliates definitely have far more knowledge than etoys, but it doesn't allow to overuse it.
Let the wrong behavior in their side.
This is not war time, its Christmas!
etoy.com will prevail. You, me and many more are with them.
This doesnt belong on slashdot... It belongs on the investor web pages and chat rooms. Especially the part about a major holiday season boycott of etoys.com.
1. IIRC, there were about three arrests, and minimal injuries. This doesn't constitute "Gestapo thugs" beating people up.
2. In a mob situation, you have to believe in this sort of reaction; otherwise, you are an anti-authoritarian, and therefore a libertarian of some kind (hopefully, a libertarian socialist, AKA anarchist)
3. Anarchism is the belief that capitalism and authority lead to humans being taken advantage of. The direct result is that no government should exist, but human interrelationships should be the foundation of order in society. Anarchists don't pillage and loot. Morons pillage and loot. Anarchists are interested in a form of equality that is simply not possible with the restraints of government and capitalism. Get your terms right.
Daniel
That's the impact successful marketing has on us. Finally the MBAs slipped up.
See subject line, and then notice the following link posted at the bottom of every page on eToys.com:
http://www.etoys.co.uk
dragonhawk@iname.microsoft.com
I do not like Microsoft. Remove them from my email address.
Why would anyone leave their kids alone on the internet anyways?
I have to return some videotapes...
http://www.ecst.csuchico.edu/~atman/spam/adblock.h tml
I have to return some videotapes...
PING www.etoys.com (204.71.184.166): 56 data bytes
--- www.etoys.com ping statistics ---
7 packets transmitted, 0 packets received, 100% packet loss
I have to return some videotapes...
Another shining example of the trademark-owner dominated world we live in. I feel the need to correct some very signficant errors the original poster made and the erroneous conclusions he arrived at as a result: > Good rules have been written to prevent things like this from > happening. Unfortunately, the rules have not taken effect yet for most > domains. Even after they do take effect, their legal status will be > uncertain until they are tested in court. > > Those rules are ICANN's [12]Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy. > This policy ensures that the conditions under which a domain name can > be disputed are strictly limited. For such a dispute even to proceed, > a complainant must assert that each of three things is true: Good rules have in fact *not* been written. Horrible rules have been written, as I will explain. If you think the etoy.com folks would have fared better under them, you are very, very mistaken. The resolution policy you cite was developed largely by representatives of trademark and/or big business interest with the intent of taking any domain in which they have the same string of characters trademarked quickly and inexpensively. It is important to know that trademarks are granted to organizations for use within a specific category of business. As such, a company may only claim rights to use that mark in that category of business. The resolution policy you cite attempts to offer trademark owners superior rights over non-trademark owners, rights which they do not have under the law, detailed below. Under the policies you are automatically forced into mandatory arbitration by the mere complaint of a trademark holder. The trademark owner need not show any basis whatsoever for their claim, or any evidence as to how you are violating their rights. Their are no penalties for abusing thability whatsoever. If you wish to avoid forced arbitration, you have a mere *10* days in which to file suit. The dispute policies require *you* to prove that you have a "legitimate interest" in the domain in are using it in " good faith." The dispute policies allow for the confiscation of a domain if you register it to prevent a trademark owner from using it. Doing so in no way constitues any sort of infringement. The dispute policies allow for the confiscation of a domain name if it is found that you are intentionally tarnishing the trademark(section 4(c)iii). Ever heard of the free-speech protection of *parody* guaranteed by the First Amendment? Why don't we take a look at the claim that ETOYS.COM made? "the antisocial, obscene, and offensive images associated with is defendants' use of the mark 'etoy,' both on the Internet and elsewhere, have tarnished the ETOYS mark and the eToys brand name..." There's that pesky "tarnish" word explicitly mentioned in the dispute policy. eTOY would have LOST their domain name without the benefit of a decison of a court of competent jurisdiction. I understand that you are well-intentioned, but the next time you consider offering *ANYTHING* produced by ICANN as a shining example of fairness and protection of domain name holders, please make damn sure to read all the documents in their entirety, and carefully consider their source. As a long-time observer and participant in that arena, it has become exceedingly clear that ICANN is a complete and utter sham, and the offering misinterpretations of its documents and actions only result in furthering the lie.
Dear Mr Coward,
If you had read the story you would have learned that ETOY.COM had the domain a few years befor ETOYS.COM did. Etoy should sue etoys, they are the ones who ripped the name off.
I have to return some videotapes...
I was sending my brother one for Xmas from etoys.com, after reading this I canceled the order, and i told the rep why. He didnt seem to know what the hell i was talking about :-/. oh well. I did look around a bit, and its the same price everyware.
I have to return some videotapes...
The command "ping www.etoys.com" does not return anything. Perhaps they were getting so many pings that they took their ping off-line?
Even if they don't respond to our pings, thousands of pings per second should still tie up their network, should it not?
Also, if they did recently take their ping command off-line, it shows they are noticing that they are being opposed.
I suggested we should consider a graphic to display on one's website that links to this story, and one appeared in my email. Matt sent me this image located here.
He told me I could "do with it what you will" - well I suggest anyone who feels inclined should post this on their website, and link it back to this story here on /.
If you have a website and you choose to add this graphic to it, let me know your site URL - you can email me at atho@pagans.org
If I get a chance and enough folks to this then I will create a site that lists all the ones that display this banner.
"The first time I got drunk, I got married. The second time I bought a chimpanzee, after that I stayed sober" Arian Seid
Promogulate: to publish or make known
;).
This word appears every 3 paragraphics in one of my PolySci books....I had never seen or heard of it before, until now...... ARG!!!!! Somehow I doubt that anyone else would be as amused as I am right now though...hehhe
If you did you would have found that etoy.com had their domain a few years befor etoys.com had theirs. etoy should be suing etoys.com.
"...inevitable confusion their domain name generates." It was EtoyS that started the confusion, not etoy
"...among other points. This post states that etoys.com doesn't want kids to veiw porn. Understandable." SAVE THE CHILDREN!...NOT! The internet is not rated G, and it shouldnt be. If you leave your little kids alone on the internet then you have bigger problems then etoy.
"I used to LOVE slashdot, but seeing the mentality of the readers AND artical posters, I'm sickened." Don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out!
I have to return some videotapes...
Maybe you LAers ought to call the judge and tell him how clueless he is. Here's the # (213)974-5679.
etoy sent out an "official" toywar graphic with their last press release. It's alittle big, but kinda nice: Lego guy with a machine gun or something. Copy available here.
Suppose Yahoo was getting millions of kids to log on to yahooligans.com and suddenly discovered that this group was putting up s&m pictures and using foul language on a site at yahooligan.com. Clearly, some kids would go to that site by accident. Would you fault Yahoo if they tried to get this group to move?
uhm yu you jshoall
all use LYNX and text mofed GOPHer shitg fuq the bweb it is lame . this is relaly on topic uyou just dont know it.
LET GO, IF JUST FOR ONE DAYYYYYY,M I CAN FLY SO HIGH. YOU ARE OWNED. LAST POST!
_.......................__
||.....__...._._||_..||-\\..._...._._||_
||......_\\.(/_'..||....||-//.//.\\.(/_'..||
||__((_||_,_/).||_..||....\\_//.,_/).\\_
The final word; anything following is redundant.
Would it help or hinder to DOS attack etoys?
What good could be gainned? Etoys is dos attacked great so that means what to etoys? Nothing...
Or maybe it means they get to spin it for simpathy... supporters of etoy attecked us... Thats not going to help...
No leave it as is... right now etoy is the victom and this leaves room for political discution to keep this sort of thing from happening again.
I don't actually exist.
Perhaps someone could write an EToys Melissa variant that would spread via email and launch a ping process against EToys from each recipient. Or cause the page to load repeatedly. Or make EToys the default home page. That should keep them bu$y until Christma$...
[Just a quote from the article:] ...they claim that "the antisocial, obscene, and offensive images associated with defendants' use of the mark 'etoy,' both on the Internet and elsewhere, have tarnished the ETOYS® mark and the eToys brand name..." A company, that sells "action figures" named GI Joe, plastic soldiers and uniforms from the German Wehrmacht, points with its finger onto cyber-artists and says "antisocial and offensive"?! This is obscene!!! Toys really suitable for kids
Check out eviltoy.com, the anti-eToys site.
0.) First the info you all waiting for, the email address of eToys President, Chief Executive Officer, and Uncle of the Board Edward C. ("Toby") Lenk toby@etoys.com 1.) eTOY exile site http://146.228.204.72:8080 2.) Financial Support http://www.toywar.com/support.php3 3.) cc all your activities to mailme@etoy.com 4.) Websites Would you Support the Scrooge? http://www.eviltoy.com/ Main Campaign Site http://www.toywar.com/ Amerikan Justice http://www.hell.com/0/JUSTICE/index.html A letter to eToys.com http://www.violentnation.com/gallery/threads/index .html eToys - Where great ideas come to you! http://geocities.com/etoys-sucks/ 5.) Articles No EToy for Christmas (Slashdot, Dec. 3, 1999) http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=99/12/01/215620 8&mode=thread Sell eToys. Buy etoy. (h2so4, Dec. 3, 1999) http://socrates.berkeley.edu/~h2so4/etoy.html ETOY enteignet (Telepolis, Dec. 3, 1999) http://www.heise.de/tp/deutsch/inhalt/te/5554/1.ht ml e-Toy Story (Village Voice, Dec.1, 1999) http://www.villagevoice.com:80/issues/9948/barlian t.shtml This Means eWar! (City Pages, Dec. 1, 1999) http://www.citypages.com/databank/20/991/article82 60.asp Toy story (Salon, Nov. 30, 1999) http://www.salonmagazine.com:80/tech/log/1999/11/3 0/etoys/index.html 6.) Linksites Open Directory http://dmoz.org/Society/Activism/Media_Activism/Cu lture_Jamming/etoy/ 7.) eToys Company Information Website http://www.etoys.com/ Company Contact Information eToys 3100 Ocean Park Blvd. Suite 300 Santa Monica, CA 90405 (310) 664-8100 service@etoys.com http://www.etoys.com/html/about_information.shtml Customer Service Contact 1-800-GO-ETOYS (1-800-463-8697) from outside the United States 1-310-664-8530 Company Profile http://www.etoys.com/html/about_intro.shtml e-mail us http://www.etoys.com/cgi-bin/email_etoys.cgi?state =email Investor Relations http://www.etoys.com/html/about_background.shtml e-mail Investor Relations http://www.etoys.com/cgi-bin/email_etoys.cgi Company Management http://www.etoys.com/html/about_management.shtml Executives: Toby Lenk: President, Chief Executive Officer, and Uncle of the Board toby@etoys.com (this works) Janine Bousquette: Senior Vice President of Marketing jbousquette@etoys.com Frank Han: Senior Vice President of Product Development fhan@etoys.com John Hnanicek: Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer jhnanicek@etoys.com Steve Schoch: Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer sschoch@etoys.com Louis Zambello: Senior Vice President of Operations lzambello@etoys.com Stephen Paul: Vice President of Business Development spaul@etoys.com Ruben Rodriguez: Vice President, Europe rrodriguez@etoys.com Jane Saltzman: Vice President of Merchandising jsaltzman@etoys.com Ken Ross: Vice President of Communications kross@etoys.com (310)664-8410 Jonathan Cutler: Public Relations Manager jcutler@etoys.com (310)664-8550 Suki Shattuck: Director of Investor Relations ir@etoys.com (310)664-8356 (310)664-8288 Reminder: Definitely we only know the first and the last three email addresses. But if you look at the overall scheme it's very plausible that all the others will work too. Check it out. Important: They want to go global! Read this: "As of September 30, 1999 the company had approximately 500 full-time employees. eToys is headquartered in Santa Monica, California and has regional offices in London, England." "Ruben joined the company in May 1999 as Vice President of eToys International. In addition to playing with LEGO toys and BRIO trains, Ruben heads all of eToys' international businesses and ventures." 8.) Principal Stockholders idealab!: 8,432,767 shares, 130 West Union Street Pasadena, CA 91103 http://www.icp.com/ http://www.idealab.com/ Highland Capital Partners: 3,803,728 shares, Two International Place Boston, MA 02110 http://www.hcp.com/ DynaFund Ventures: 2,563,835 shares, 21311 Hawthorne Blvd., Suite 300 Torrance, CA 90503 http://www.dynafundventures.com/ Intel Corporation 2,563,834 shares, 2200 Mission Blvd. Santa Clara, CA 95052 http://www.intel.com/ Sequoia Capital Partners 2,377,330 shares, 3000 Sand Hill Road, Bldg. 4, Suite 280 Menlo Park, CA 94025 http://www.sequoiacap.com/ Daniel J. Nova 3,803,728 shares, dnova@hcp.com http://www.hcp.com/team/nova.htm Tony Hung 2,563,835 shares, thung@dynafundventures.com http://www.dynafundventures.com/our_team/tony.html Edward C. Lenk 2,500,000 shares, toby@etoys.com http://www.etoys.com/html/about_management.shtml Michael Moritz 2,377,330 shares, moritz@sequoiacap.com http://www.sequoiacap.com/sequoia/team/team_mmorit z.htm Peter C.M. Hart 111,734 shares, Louis V. Zambello III 275,000 shares, John R.Hnanicek 200,000 shares, additional principal stockholders as of Nov. 24, 1999: Louis Moore Bacon 8,345,075 shares, Moore Capital Management, Inc. 7,271,785 shares, 1251 Avenue of the Americas New York, New York 10020 Telephone: (212)782-7000 FAX: (212)782-7550 Moore Global Investments 7,271,785 shares Total Shares Outstanding 119,756,000
Many readers have the ability to block etoys from the networks they operate thru IP or thru insertion of a bogus etoys.com in their DNS table. Do it.. Hurt their bottom line.
It's toadies that roll-over at the drop of a hat like you who enable the Bigs to continue gathering the strength to screw us all over. You can shove your policy of appeasement back up your arse. Geez, if you had been a major decision maker back in WWII, we'd all be sprechen zi deutche by now. Jerk.
Now kindly vacate your house and kick yourself to the curb.
Have you ever heard of the concept of branding? The value of mindshare? Do you think established corporations and their bevy of trademarked goods and services would share your point of view?
Geez, think!
Or just don't use openmerchant cause it is pretty lame software. Have you looked at the code? ick! I could hardly believe it was coming from such a hyped-up company, with backers like IdeaLab. The distibution is ugly, with tmp files left in by the developers, and the high-level design of the software doesn't look like it had much thought put into it. And they don't use CVS! =P Actually, while you were posting that, we were busy with our second release of OpenMerchant. (It went out Friday evening.) The first released version had all the faults of quick proprietary development -- the hacks and re-writes imposed later by clients with time pressures. The version released Friday is (some bugs aside) complete and fairly easily installable; I urge you to take a second look. On CVS: *sigh* We're distributing nightly builds. We're incorporating patches and bugfixes submitted to our development mailing list. One of our programmers is working on a new source control system -- until then (and until I can convince folk here to use CVS :) we're going with the Tarball Versioning System.
Good luck "etoy" on whatever you decide to do.
My 2 cents - The Media has a habit of building you up - and dropping you tomorrow. Here's an option that allows you to sell out and win.
A not 100% confirmed story. The guy that sold/exchanged/whatever "toys.com" received 750,000 shares in return. At $55 per share, that's over $41m.
It would never happen, but, suppose you got $41m for etoy.com (Ask for 750,000 shares. It sounds less).
You could find a good investment company, invest in a few dot.coms...and in 3 years time..buy the company and fire all the chief execs.
Very dangerous for us all when a corporation uses a judge to break the law. First use is an absolute defense against trademark infringement. In any case BOYCOTT E-TOYS but also, sell their stock, check if your mutual fund has any e-toys in the portfolio and instruct your broker not to buy any fund with e-toys. Then LOOK DEEPER, guess who owns 35% of E-toys: chipmaker, Intel. So BOYCOTT INTEL and move to AMR. Call E-Toys and voice outrage of their facist tactics: Ken Ross, VP of Communications 310-664-8410 kross@etoys.com Jonathan Cutler, Public Relations Manager 310-664-8550 jcutler@etoys.com Suki Shattuck, Director of Investor Relations 310-664-8356 ir@etoys.com Also: Idealab! owns 25% of E-toys. They are an internet incubator. Boycott their start-ups. BOYCOTT E-TOYS BOYCOTT INTEL SELL THEIR STOCK DON'T BUY THEIR PRODUCTS Give them free word of mouth advertising: Tell everybody that these companies use facist business tactics to like Hitler's Germany. These are anti-American companies. It is time to take back the US for the small business. Fairness is what the law should apply. Once, the bubble on that myth bursts, watch out, CHAOS!!!!!!!
Dear Editor,
I'd like to complain about a disgusting website I've just visited called "etoys.com". It turns out that I had typed in the wrong URL, as I was really seeking out "etoy.com" in the hopes of viewing some enlightening and motivating artistic matter. Imagine my shock, then, when I discovered that another company, in an attempt to steal the audience away from the popular artists at etoy.com, has set up a disturbing, crass, aesthetically putrid concoction at "etoyS.com", an URL designed to look like that of my favorite cultural site!
What I found there disgusted me - molded pieces of plastic and other garbage - all in an attempt to get this law-abiding, tax-paying citizen's cash!
I am morally offended by this commercial smut and wish that congress would finally pass some legislation to protect the public from such vapid capitalistic ventures.
Yrs sincerely,
Charles U. Farley
Channel Versus
I'm appalled at what etoys is doing. I intend to write a scathing e-mail to them at every e-mail address I can find on their contact page, which by the way is http://www.etoys.com/html/about_information.shtml Has links to some interesting e-mail accounts. As a father of 3 young kids, and with a connection to families that represent a few thousand kids, I intend to tell them that I'll be recommending people do NOT shop at their web site unless they drop their case immediately. I'm a computer/network specialist by profession so people do listen to my recommendations regarding technology and on-line purchasing. The dolts at etoys probably won't care, but they will read my e-mail and it'll get them thinking. just call me anonymous coward. Haha!
Hello, I was most dismayed today when I read an email I received from a friend concerning etoys legal actions against the owners of the etoy.com domain. Whichever parties at your organization instigated this action have besmirched your good reputation, and I fear it will be much effort to repair it. Your fame is spreading rapidly. As a computer professional since 1977 I have watched the Internet community grow from tolerant friendly community into what it is today, and am saddened by your actions regarding a fellow member of this community. As an employee of the world's largest computer company who is single and very well paid I was hoping to buy some very nice toys from you for my 5 nieces and nephews for this Christmas. However, I am afraid that I cannot now in good conscience do so. I feel I must "vote with my wallet" and purchase such items elsewhere. If I purchased anything from you, it could well be my own money that would be used in future legal actions your lawyers take. I am placing word of the information I received on our company's global internal employee bulletin board where it hopefully can be viewed by several hundred thousand of our employees worldwide before the Christmas season. I am also sending it to MSNBC, CNN.COM and ZDTV to let them also know what is going on. May the growing riptide of public opinion pull you under.
One of the web sites I run is an eToys Affiliate Partner, meaning I can sell eToys products off of the site. I am now going to cancel my Affiliate Partnership and I'll be including this as my reason for cancellation.
I hope other sites will do the same, 'cause, this is totally rediculous.
- dpk
(Not intentioanally anonymous, name and address below). This is hardly a unique case. I'm litigating one with a similar fact-pattern in Boston (yes, I am a lawyer). More info on the Boston case is available at www.NorthernLights.com/new/
/. folks if they are interested in what I like to call an "open source democracy" project to help make sure that Senator Abraham understands that he didn't take the time to pass a fair bill and consider the interests of the people who would be hurt by this big-money power grab. If, just as a matter of coincidence, (1) Seantor Abraham were up for re-election in 2000 (he is), and (2) a website could be created comparing the high school textbook "how a bill becomes a law" steps we all learned with the way the "cybersquatting bill" actually got pushed thru Congress, in order ot illustrate in a concrete way exactly how "big money" gets stuff done on the Hill (a truthful site would embarrass Abraham enormously if published), and (3) purely by coincidence, the day before the President signed the bill, Senator Abraham still had not bothered to register a lot of domain names using his name (e.g., spencerabraham.net) (the schmuck really blew it), and (4) someone managed to secure a lot of these -- grandfathered-in to protect from at least some of the draconian remedies under the bill (I'll neither confirm nor deny, but do a "whois"), and (5) others have volunteered to contribute still other domain names to the effort (they have), and (6) that somebody also thinks the bill is unconstitutional and thinks the best test case to take up to the Supreme Court is one with Spencer Abraham's name all over it . . .
/. and who might be willing to contribute a little time and effort to start a really effective grassroots political movement on this and other issues?
Congress just passed (and the President signed) a so-called "cybersquatting" bill that promises to make the number of such lawsuits against small businesses and nonprofits explode.
The sponsors of the legislation were Senator Abraham and Congressman Rogin.
Let me ask
Does anyone think that there are some "open source" and web design afficianados who read
Best regards,
Eric C. Grimm
CyberBrief, PLC
320 South Main Street
Ann Arbor, MI 48105
ericgrimm@sprintmail.com
This is hardly a unique case. And I have a few in mind (some I am handling) for possible test cases on constitutoinality.
/. folks if they are interested in what I like to call an "open source democracy" project to help make sure that Senator Abraham understands that he didn't take the time to pass a fair bill and consider the interests of the people who would be hurt by this big-money power grab. If, just as a matter of coincidence, (1) Seantor Abraham were up for re-election in 2000 (he is), and (2) a website could be created comparing the high school textbook "how a bill becomes a law" steps we all learned with the way the "cybersquatting bill" got pushed thru Congress, that illustrates exactly how "big money" gets stuff done on the Hill (a truthful site would embarrass Abraham enormously if published), and (3) purely by coincidence, the day before the President signed the bill, Senator Abraham still had not bothered to register a lot of domain names ussing his name (e.g., spencerabraham.net) (the schmuck really blew it), and (4) someone managed to secure a lot of these -- grandfathered-in to protect from at least some of the draconian remedies under the bill (I'll neither confirm nor deny, but do a "whois"), and (5) others have volunteered to contribute still other domain names to the effort (they have), and (6) that somebody also thinks the bill is unconstitutional and thinks the best test case to take up to the Supreme Court is one with Spencer Abraham's name all over it . . .
/. who might b willing to contribute a little time and effort to start a really effective grassroots political movement on this and other important issues?
I'm litigating one with a similar fact-pattern in Boston (yes, I am a lawyer). More info on the Boston case is available at www.NorthernLights.com/new/
Congress just passed (and the President signed) a so-called "cybersquatting" bill that promises to make the number of such lawsuits against small businesses and nonprofits explode.
The sponsors of the legislation were Senator Abraham and Congressman Rogin.
Let me ask
Does anyone think that there are some "open source" and web design folks who read
Best regards,
Eric C. Grimm
CyberBrief, PLC
320 South Main Street
Ann Arbor, MI 48105
ericgrimm@sprintmail.com
Wow, imagine if you accidently typed etoys.com when you were looking for art. =) Granted, if etoy.com is going to display things not suitable for children (assuming such things aren't just rumors), maybe they should have a warning page. But that's a separate issue altogether... It seems to me that eToys didn't do their research very well. We're talking about an "e-business" here, a .com company. Did they not notice the radical etoy.com 2 years ago and see that it might be harmful to form a company under etoys.com? If Typo-Protection(TM) wasn't an issue then, why is it now? Now that eToys has been labelled scrooge, it seems the best solution for eToys to start over next year. They have the cash. Get a new name and register all variations of the domain. - n8 Maybe in 10 years we won't use domain names anymore, and everything will be good.
To reach Mr. Lenk, send an email to toby@etoys.com. Other pertitent email addresses include: Jonathan Cutler: Public Relations Manager jcutler@etoys.com (310)664-8550 Frank Han: Senior Vice President of Product Development fhan@etoys.com
Actually, this being Christmas and all, a DoS would hurt them greatly.
1) Imagine how much they make per day in sales.
2) Multiply that by 10 to get Christmas-time sales figures
3) Multiply that by 0 to get the amount of sales they make if their site is unreachable
They'd get the message in a hurry.