RSSGoogle Wins Copycat Domain Fight
By Ed Oswald | Published July 8, 2005, 2:21 PM
The National Arbitration Forum, a group set up by ICANN to hear domain name disputes, has ruled in favor of Google in a case where a Russian male registered Web addresses similar in spelling to the company's name.
The search giant filed the complaint on May 11, claiming it had legal rights to four addresses which Sergey Gridasov of Saint Petersburg had registered in 2000 and 2001. Gridasov registered googkle.com, ghoogle.com, gfoogle.com and gooigle.com with the site Joker.com.
Gridasov did not answer the arbitrator's calls to testify on his behalf.
Paul Dorf, the NAF official put in charge of the case, ruled in favor of Google saying that he had no evidence that Gridasov was not trying to interfere or take advantage of his domain's resemblances to the Google name.
According to the arbitrator, the sites were being used as ways to trick users into downloading viruses and spyware by redirecting them to malicious Web sites.
Hey geniuses... Arbitration is NOT a criminal court. Arbitration more closely matches a civil case. Google had well beyond a preponderance in their favor. For that matter, why are you hypocrites angry that a dude pushing spyware got shut down? This isn't "The Man" coming down on a poor, little innocent dude. MikeRoweSoft.com was unnecessary; that had nothing to do with a fame typo. This was malicious. In addition, the dude didn't respond to the arbitrator. How else would you decide? When you don't show, don't call, and don't write, don't expect to win.
Score: 0
|Hahahahahahahahahahahaha!!!!!!
Score: 0
|Try this one: begoogled.com - Or the site from Marissa: http://www.googlehead.com/
This one is great: http://www.evilgoogle.com/
Or this one, still available: www.trickygoogle.com
I even didn;t know this one: http://www.googlekids.com/
Or do it all now: http://www.googlenow.com/
Anyway I ask myself why they take action to the guy in Russia, I can come up with some more examples here. Everybody on the net should register names related to Google, say a million people at once or so. Big fun I guess...
Score: 0
|ICANN better read its own policies for such a ruling!
It's WRONG
Poor Sergey Gridasov, if only you were rich enough to sue and fight back
Score: 0
|You couldn't be more wrong, or more ignorant, UTAKER.
Score: 0
|Agreed.
Score: 0
|Yeah...poor little spamming, adware pushing, pop-up abusing bas****.
Sticking up for the little guy is all well and good, but when the little guy is about as sleazy as they come on the net, he gets no sympathy from me.
Frnkly, I think Google should have been brutal to this guy. I couldn't care less about the naming issue. I don't think that is what bothered Google. It's that the sites consisted of malicious code designed only to bring the registrar more cash, at the expense of any user unlucky enough to have typed in the wrong address.
Score: 0
|"ruled in favor of Google saying that HE HAD NO EVIDENCE that Gridasov WAS NOT trying to interfere or take advantage of his domain's resemblances to the Google name."
What kind of trickery wording is this! They didn't even say if there WAS EVICENCE that Gridasov IS/WAS trying to interfere. Innocent until proven guilty?
I don't see why google is so concerned about this anyway... I don't think trademarks should include domain names. All major music groups are trade marked - does that mean they are going to have a website? Not always, and if they do, are they going to use their band name as their domain? not always. Take Sublime for example, a band that became huge, never used sublime.com, you can still find their site on skunk.com. Oh, maybe they never used sublime.com because they got popular after the lead singer died, and remaining band members changed the style and band name to Long Beach Dub Allstars, one might say... OK... LBDA used to have lbdas.com, but what is their site now?
and when are they going after whitehouse.com?
Score: 0
|"According to the arbitrator, the sites were being used as ways to trick users into downloading viruses and spyware by redirecting them to malicious Web sites."
Score: 0
|You don't see why Google is concerned? How would you feel if someone mis-keyed your website URL by one letter, installed a nasty virus, and was left with a non-functional computer?
The problem is that Google.com already existed before this guy decided to go out and register those domain names. His intentions were obviously not legitimate.
What evidence are you looking for? All of the domain names are one letter away from Google.com. The domains he registered did not represent a company name (e.g. Google.com for Google, Microsoft.com for Microsoft, etc.), nor did the domain name have anything to do with the contents of his website. The websites all promoted the installation of spyware and/or viruses.
I don't think anything can be done about WhiteHouse.com. That website is legit, and it's not using a registered trademark, company name, etc. It seems they would have been taken down years ago if they were in the wrong. I'm surprised they haven't been bought out yet.
Score: 0
|"Innocent until proven guilty?"
Wake up and smell the roses junior. If you are inferring reference to the oft overused term in the states, look around, wake up, and smell the roses. If one were truely "Innocent until proven guilty?", then there would be no such thing as "pretrial incarceration". but there is, this is the real world, and whether you are guilty or innocent is a moot point. from the moment the man sets his eyes on you youre screwed. and god forbid they actually arrest you. An arrest in the US is the equivalent of trial and sentence because they haul you away and imprison you until you get your "day in court". Which is another laugh, a right to a speedy trial; and in the man's eyes, speedy can take up to 6 months, all the time you get to rot in a cell if you dont have outlandish sums to grease the payola palms of the criminal justice system (what's called posting bail). AFAIK, most bail fees start at 10,000 dollars, and even if you can get away with 10,000 or 10% (1,000 bux), you are still being raped, because if you get lucky and get out proven innocent you loose all the interest you would have had on that money from the bank, and you still end up with something even worse, the stigma for the rest of your life of havine been arrested and incarcerated, loss of incomne due to the time you have to spend in court and litigation (provided you even HAVE a job anymore). The whole system is a joke, but the even bigger joke (or crime if you will) is the fact the US citizens actually believe they still have rights. LOL what a joke.
Score: 0
|Dude...he didn't show up! Innocent until proven guilty...not showing up to defend youself is well known as an acceptance of guilt.
You don't show up, the ruling goes against you. Plain and simple. Ignorance of this is not a defence. He was contacted, he didn't show, end of story.
Would you show? His sites are mal-ware ridden internet cancer. Good riddance.
Score: 0
|Okay...let's leave the rapists on the street until the trial date then. Yeah, and if they don't show up, and we never find them, oh well... It's not like they'd be stupid enough to commit again, right?
Yeah, the US legal system has it's issues. Still a hell of a lot better than most other places, though.
Score: 0
|http://www.goooooooooooogle.com/ is free.
Score: 0
|jiggle.com :D
Score: 0
|booble.com?
Score: 0
|or nissan.com :)
Score: 0
|This reminds of when someone registered MikeRoweSoft.com... :D
Score: 0
|At least Mike had a legitimit site on his domain. I still think that case was stupid though.
Score: 0
|The google case was more involved with users being tricked to go to these sites (URL typo, etc...) and then getting a healthy dose of Malware.
MikeRoweSoft was a legitimate site that had no intention of 'tricking' users.
Score: 0
|