Sam Adams Beer Tells Real Sam Adams He Can't Use Sam Adams In A Domain Name

from the how-would-our-founding-father-feel? dept

Witty Nickname writes "In Portland, Oregon a man named Sam Adams is running for mayor, and has a website called mayorsamadams.com. In Boston the brewers of Sam Adam's beer sent a letter to the people who registered the site telling them to knock it off, because they have been using the trademark 'Sam Adams' since 1984. The candidate fought back saying that he had been using the name all of his life. Once the brewer realized that it was not a joke they said they are willing to discuss his use of the domain throughout the campaign. How generous of them." As of the time of this writing, the website itself says: "We are sorry. Due to pending legal action these pages are now unavailable." The company behind Samuel Adams Beer, the Boston Beer Company, is apparently now saying that the real problem it had with the use of the name was that it was registered by employees of a radio station, and even though it was for the real candidate Sam Adams, it was being used by the radio station for commercial reasons. Of course, that's a pretty weak response, because it seems pretty likely that the trademark on Sam Adams is related directly to beer and other merchandise -- and not to random political websites. Also, it seems doubtful that the radio hosts were using the beer connection as part of their promotion of the candidate. In other words, it's difficult to see how this passes the moron in a hurry test.

Filed Under: domain names, trademark

ICANN Investigating Sites That Buy The Available Domain You Just Searched For

from the about-time... dept

Last year, we wrote about some reports that various domain name lookup sites were actually scams designed to register the domains you wanted. What people were noticing was that they would do a search on a domain name and find it was available. Then, a day later, they'd go back to register it and find it was taken. That could be a coincidence, but it was happening so often, that some people began to suspect foul play -- and that some whois sites were either registering the domains themselves, or selling their search lists to speculators who were hoping to buy up the domains and then flip them to people who were upset about missing out on them while they were available. It only took a year and a half or so of complaints, but ICANN has finally decided this might be a problem worth investigating. What's slightly odd about the investigation, though, is that the comments make it sound like ICANN is most worried that people think this is happening -- rather than whether or not it's actually happening. That is, they're quite concerned that there's a perception out there that this happens. They might get further not worrying so much about perception and just focusing on what's actually going on.

Filed Under: domain names, scams
Companies: icann

Dallas Cowboys Return Cowboys.com After Thinking The Price Was $275 Instead Of $275,000

from the false-start.--10-yard-penalty dept

The domain name business is hot again, driving up the price of popular domains names, sometimes to ridiculous levels. However, it appears that no one briefed the Dallas Cowboys on what these types of things typically cost. The owner of the domain cowboys.com recently sold it in a domain auction, with the winning bid of $275,000 going to the Cowboys. Apparently, on receiving the invoice, the Dallas Cowboys are claiming that it was a mistake -- they thought the bid had been for $275, not $275,000 -- and therefore, they wish to cancel the sale. Of course, some people are suggesting that this is merely a cop out from a team that has a bit of buyer's remorse. It does seem a bit bizarre that anyone would think they could get such a domain for $275.

Filed Under: cowboys.com, domain names, domainers, football
Companies: dallas cowboys

Feds Accidentally Turn Off California Gov't Websites

from the sorry-about-that dept

Every once in a while you hear stories of companies having problems with their domain names, often because someone forgot to re-register the domain name or possibly because of a routing problem. However, you don't really expect that to happen to a government website. However, after a California county agency had its gov't website hacked, the feds back in Washington DC accidentally turned off all of the ca.gov domain, causing quite a bit of confusion among California state gov't employees. It gets even better. Apparently, it happened around noon Pacific Time which is 3pm back on the east coast. Yet, as the article notes: "Unfortunately that was about 3 in the afternoon and folks back East were already going home, so it took us some time to get hold of the right people in the General Service Administration to get this address reinstated." Sure, I can understand time zone differences... but 3pm isn't exactly quitting time. Must be great to be a government employee, huh? Shut down an entire state government's email and web domains without realizing it... and head out the door by 3pm.

Filed Under: domain names

Popular Online Poker Site Changing Names Due To Patent Dispute

from the what's-a-domain-got-to-do-with-it? dept

Shawn Patrick Green writes "As if online poker weren't embattled enough. Popular online poker site, Bodog, was forced to change its name to NewBodog.com after they failed to show up at a patent-dispute trial in Nevada, prompting the judge to suspend its domain, Bodog.com. The site has now "permanently" changed its name to BodogLife.com and the founder, Calvin Ayre, says that he refuses to pay the guy that brought up the overly-broad patent dispute, who is claiming $48 million in damages." If you're interested, the patent in question can be viewed here. It hardly seems unique or innovative. If you asked someone how they'd design a system for prioritizing the display of certain content over a network, plenty of engineers would have come up with the same sort of solution. The bigger question, though, is why a judge would take away a website's domain name in a patent dispute?

Filed Under: domain names, online poker, patents
Companies: bodog

Picking Baby Names Based On The Availability Of The Dot Com

from the a-sign-of-the-times dept

There are some really cool tools out there for people trying to come up with baby names, but apparently some parents are now mostly concerned about what names will have a URL available, so they can register it well before the kid is ever going to use it. This isn't too surprising as a sign of the times, but it does make you wonder if there will be fewer and fewer of stories like the one found recently in the Washington Post of a guy who tried to find all the people around the world who shared his name. Given the combination of a more global communications system and the desire to have a place of your own online, the quest for truly unique names may become even more important.

Filed Under: baby names, domain names
Companies: godaddy