"for sale" domain owners don't respond to email

[Bush is a Fascist]

Hi folks,

Lately I've been shopping for a domain, and I have been
encountering, like most people have no doubt, that many
domains are owned by people who aren't using them,
although they might have a page full of links.
Often there is some note saying that the domain is "for sale".

However when I email the owners, they never ever respond.
Even if it says to inquire about buying at some email,
it's useless because they never respond.

Why is that? Are they selling domains on Ebay or something?

Thanks for any clues.

[s***@tropheus.demon.co.uk]

Post by Bush is a Fascist
Often there is some note saying that the domain is "for sale".
However when I email the owners, they never ever respond.
Even if it says to inquire about buying at some email,
it's useless because they never respond.

I have had emails asking me to sell one of my domain names. I don't
respond because it looks like an attempt to get one of my valid email
addresses for spam.

[Guy Macon]

Post by s***@tropheus.demon.co.uk

Post by Bush is a Fascist
Often there is some note saying that the domain is "for sale".
However when I email the owners, they never ever respond.
Even if it says to inquire about buying at some email,
it's useless because they never respond.

I have had emails asking me to sell one of my domain names. I don't
respond because it looks like an attempt to get one of my valid email
addresses for spam.

I assume that the domains in question don't have a page saying
"this domain for sale; contact me at ***@example.com"...

[Charles Sweeney]

Post by s***@tropheus.demon.co.uk

Post by Bush is a Fascist
Often there is some note saying that the domain is "for sale".
However when I email the owners, they never ever respond.
Even if it says to inquire about buying at some email,
it's useless because they never respond.

I have had emails asking me to sell one of my domain names. I don't
respond because it looks like an attempt to get one of my valid email
addresses for spam.

Yes, but I suspect your name in question isn't advertised as "for sale".
The point here is about names that *are* for sale, and are advertised as
such.

[Guy Macon]

Post by Charles Sweeney

Post by s***@tropheus.demon.co.uk

Post by Bush is a Fascist
Often there is some note saying that the domain is "for sale".
However when I email the owners, they never ever respond.
Even if it says to inquire about buying at some email,
it's useless because they never respond.

I have had emails asking me to sell one of my domain names. I don't
respond because it looks like an attempt to get one of my valid email
addresses for spam.

Yes, but I suspect your name in question isn't advertised as "for sale".
The point here is about names that *are* for sale, and are advertised as
such.

I contacted the email address in the WHOIS and the contact address
on the webpage (if any) of four domains that had for-sale webpages
with a "I would like to purchase this domain; what is the price?"
emails. One had a webform which I als filled out. I got no replies
and two bounced emails. Not a huge sample, but one wonders why four
different domain owners would register a domain and advertise it as
being for sale without supplying any mechanism for potential buyers
to contact them.

[Charles Sweeney]

Post by Guy Macon
I contacted the email address in the WHOIS and the contact address
on the webpage (if any) of four domains that had for-sale webpages
with a "I would like to purchase this domain; what is the price?"
emails. One had a webform which I als filled out. I got no replies
and two bounced emails. Not a huge sample, but one wonders why four
different domain owners would register a domain and advertise it as
being for sale without supplying any mechanism for potential buyers
to contact them.

Yep. It's bonkers.

[Jim Moe]

Post by Bush is a Fascist
However when I email the owners, they never ever respond.
Even if it says to inquire about buying at some email,
it's useless because they never respond.
Why is that? Are they selling domains on Ebay or something?

For a while speculators were registering domains that they guessed
would be popular with the hope that people would be stupid enough to pay a
large amount to acquire. I have only heard of one instance where such a
scam worked.
Probably the person(s) who registered the domains have starved to death
waiting for the stampede to their doors. Or lived on the Gulf coast.

[WD10]

Post by Jim Moe

Post by Bush is a Fascist
However when I email the owners, they never ever respond.
Even if it says to inquire about buying at some email,
it's useless because they never respond.
Why is that? Are they selling domains on Ebay or something?

For a while speculators were registering domains that they guessed
would be popular with the hope that people would be stupid enough to pay a
large amount to acquire. I have only heard of one instance where such a
scam worked.
Probably the person(s) who registered the domains have starved to death
waiting for the stampede to their doors. Or lived on the Gulf coast.

I hate the people that register domains that they have no use for so
that they can sell them at unfair prices.

If you need the domain, you can often find their contact information
(like phone numbers) with a whois search: http://www.whois.net

Maybe they have had the domains for many years and don't check their email
anymore.

Maybe don't make an initial offer with your first contact. Just say that
you saw that they owned the domain and you are interested to know if they
are selling. Don't sound eager, because if you sound too professional they might try to quote you a ridiculously high price ("tens of
thousands of dollars" or whatever). If you are lucky, they might be
getting bored with wasting $35/year for the name. They are probably often
thinking to themselves, "I wish I could get rid of all these domain names
and at least get some of my investment on yearly fees back." If you don't
mention too much information in your initial contact then you don't risk
offering "too low" an amount and maybe they will be more likely to
respond. Also, you can check the expiry date of the domain, put it on
your calendar with a reminder, and hope that they don't renew it...

[Mike Redrobe]

Post by Jim Moe
For a while speculators were registering domains that they guessed
would be popular with the hope that people would be stupid enough to pay a
large amount to acquire. I have only heard of one instance where such a
scam worked.

Go visit www.sedo.com and look at recent sales

If you are lucky, they might be getting bored with
wasting $35/year for the name.

.. its $7 per year, and thats more than paid for by a few clicks on the
parking page...a single click is between $0.1 and 1$

They are probably often thinking to themselves, "I wish I could get rid
of all these domain names and at least get some of my investment on
yearly fees back."

No, parked domains do make money, sometimes large amounts,
maybe you should look up PPC

If you want to buy a domain, offer at least more than its yearly income,
a lowball offer of $50 or $100 will always get ignored.

--
Mike

[WD10]

Post by Mike Redrobe

Post by Jim Moe
For a while speculators were registering domains that they guessed
would be popular with the hope that people would be stupid enough to pay a
large amount to acquire. I have only heard of one instance where such a
scam worked.

Go visit www.sedo.com and look at recent sales

If you are lucky, they might be getting bored with
wasting $35/year for the name.

.. its $7 per year, and thats more than paid for by a few clicks on the
parking page...a single click is between $0.1 and 1$

I pay $7 for my domain names but I know people who pay $35+/year,
and I think it is fairly common to do that. Look at Network Solutions'
price list.

Post by Mike Redrobe

They are probably often thinking to themselves, "I wish I could get rid
of all these domain names and at least get some of my investment on
yearly fees back."

No, parked domains do make money, sometimes large amounts,
maybe you should look up PPC

I know what PPC is, but I'm talking about domain names that probably
sounded like a good idea at the time of purchase but don't get any
traffic. I can think of a few examples that are blocking people I know
from getting their business name as a domain name.

Post by Mike Redrobe
If you want to buy a domain, offer at least more than its yearly income,
a lowball offer of $50 or $100 will always get ignored.

I guess it depends on the domain name. Do you think most domain names are
making over $100/year with those spammy parking pages? Sorry, it's spam... It's dishonest, offering nothing of value to people who use the
Web.

[Charles Sweeney]

Post by WD10
I hate the people that register domains that they have no use for so
that they can sell them at unfair prices.

I hate people who buy shares in fledgling companies, then sell them for
a huge profit, years later.

It's called speculation. It's as old as the hills, get used to it.

(Obvious Trademark issues aside)

Don't worry yourself over it. They don't make any money, but they do
pour millions into the system.

[Mikkel Moldrup-Lakjer]

Post by Charles Sweeney

Post by WD10
I hate the people that register domains that they have no use for so
that they can sell them at unfair prices.

I hate people who buy shares in fledgling companies, then sell them for
a huge profit, years later.
It's called speculation. It's as old as the hills, get used to it.
(Obvious Trademark issues aside)

Why? Such speculation is illegal in many other parts of society. No
theoretical hindrance of introducing legislation in this area also. Some
countries probably already have such legislation. For instance, you have
to be a Spanish citizen, business or similar, to register an .es domain.

Post by Charles Sweeney
Don't worry yourself over it. They don't make any money, but they do
pour millions into the system.

I don't know about that. What examples have there been of domain names
sold at a high price? I have seen som at online auctions.

Mikkel

[Letterfly]

Post by Mikkel Moldrup-Lakjer

Post by Charles Sweeney
It's called speculation. It's as old as the hills, get used to it.
(Obvious Trademark issues aside)

Why? Such speculation is illegal in many other parts of society.

I'm guessing that speculation regarding several common words strung
together might still be legal. What's illegal would be speculating by
reserving a domain name that legally should belong to someone else.

However, what is reasonable about a company that doesn't want your
domain, they just don't want you to have it? One of my friends had
reserved and created pages for a number of domains including
gonews.com, checkersnews.com, chessnews.com, scra bblenews.com, etc.

You guessed it ... the company owning the scrabble trademark demanded
they take the page down, not because they wanted the page, but just
because they didn't want anyone using scrabble as part of their name.

I think that was a little over board, since the page in question merely
had links to news items that related to the world of scrabble.

John
www.GodLovesEveryone.org

[Big Bill]

On 10 Sep 2005 06:21:15 -0700, "Letterfly"

Post by Letterfly

Post by Mikkel Moldrup-Lakjer

Post by Charles Sweeney
It's called speculation. It's as old as the hills, get used to it.
(Obvious Trademark issues aside)

Why? Such speculation is illegal in many other parts of society.

I'm guessing that speculation regarding several common words strung
together might still be legal. What's illegal would be speculating by
reserving a domain name that legally should belong to someone else.
However, what is reasonable about a company that doesn't want your
domain, they just don't want you to have it? One of my friends had
reserved and created pages for a number of domains including
gonews.com, checkersnews.com, chessnews.com, scra bblenews.com, etc.
You guessed it ... the company owning the scrabble trademark demanded
they take the page down, not because they wanted the page, but just
because they didn't want anyone using scrabble as part of their name.
I think that was a little over board, since the page in question merely
had links to news items that related to the world of scrabble.
John
www.GodLovesEveryone.org

You've had no problems from God, I take it?

BB
--
www.kruse.co.uk/ ***@kruse.demon.co.uk
Elvis does my SEO
--

[David]

Post by Charles Sweeney

Post by WD10
I hate the people that register domains that they have no use for so
that they can sell them at unfair prices.

I hate people who buy shares in fledgling companies, then sell them for
a huge profit, years later.

Yeah me too, they never let me in on the action :-))

Post by Charles Sweeney
It's called speculation. It's as old as the hills, get used to it.

It's funny how some people consider the internet as different to the
real world. I'm considering going into property in a couple of years
time, buy to let (UK markets meant to drop for a couple of years then
start it's rise again), I'm hoping the property I buy goes up in price
so I can sell it a few years later. No different to buying a domain
name and hoping someone is willing to pay more than you paid for it.

Post by Charles Sweeney
(Obvious Trademark issues aside)
Don't worry yourself over it. They don't make any money, but they do
pour millions into the system.

I don't know, the majority of the $20,000 plus domains for sale are a
joke, I guess it's newbies to domain selling thinking because others
offer domains for ludicrous prices someone actually buys them. At the
realistic end of the market there seems to be a fair number of domains
changing hands, not for the price above, but for reasonable sums.

I've never sold a domain, so this is based on research as a buyer.
I've bought over 50 domains and all have been under $200 (got a few
for under $20!). Some of these I've seen advertised on SEDO for
thousands of dollars. I've tended to go for domains that are low PR
with potential, so to most people they wouldn't be worth much (bit of
an experiment to be honest).

Anyone got any experience of selling domains based on PR, is there a
market?

David

[Mikkel Moldrup-Lakjer]

Post by David
It's funny how some people consider the internet as different to the
real world.

I don't know if you read my post but I was making a comparison to "the
real world". I don't know why you think of the internet as something
different from "the real world".

Post by David
I'm considering going into property in a couple of years
time, buy to let (UK markets meant to drop for a couple of years then
start it's rise again), I'm hoping the property I buy goes up in price
so I can sell it a few years later. No different to buying a domain
name and hoping someone is willing to pay more than you paid for it.

I am glad you made that comparison, because I can tell you that
speculating in bying real estate and letting the houses stand empty
until a high price is offered - while other people cannot find a place
to live - is actually illegal in some parts of the world. And no, I'm
not talking about North Korea or Cuba, but about the Western World.

Mikkel

[David]

On Sat, 10 Sep 2005 17:36:11 +0200, Mikkel Moldrup-Lakjer

Post by Mikkel Moldrup-Lakjer

Post by David
It's funny how some people consider the internet as different to the
real world.

I don't know if you read my post but I was making a comparison to "the
real world". I don't know why you think of the internet as something
different from "the real world".

I said it's "funny how some people consider the internet as different
to the real world" so how does that equate to me thinking the internet
is different from the real world?

Post by Mikkel Moldrup-Lakjer

Post by David
I'm considering going into property in a couple of years
time, buy to let (UK markets meant to drop for a couple of years then
start it's rise again), I'm hoping the property I buy goes up in price
so I can sell it a few years later. No different to buying a domain
name and hoping someone is willing to pay more than you paid for it.

I am glad you made that comparison, because I can tell you that
speculating in bying real estate and letting the houses stand empty
until a high price is offered - while other people cannot find a place
to live - is actually illegal in some parts of the world. And no, I'm
not talking about North Korea or Cuba, but about the Western World.

I know, do you know what BUY TO LET is?

If not it means you BUY a property and LET is out to tenants,
therefore the property isn't empty (lot of rental demand in the UK).
You make enough money from the letting to justify tying that amount of
money up (or you could get a mortgage) and the real profit comes when
it's sold (assuming the market moves in the right direction).

You misread my entire post!

Post by Mikkel Moldrup-Lakjer
Mikkel

David

[Mikkel Moldrup-Lakjer]

Post by David
On Sat, 10 Sep 2005 17:36:11 +0200, Mikkel Moldrup-Lakjer

Post by Mikkel Moldrup-Lakjer

Post by David
It's funny how some people consider the internet as different to the
real world.

I don't know if you read my post but I was making a comparison to "the
real world". I don't know why you think of the internet as something
different from "the real world".

I said it's "funny how some people consider the internet as different
to the real world" so how does that equate to me thinking the internet
is different from the real world?

All right, I did not phrase that very well. Let me just say that I
arrive at a different conclusion than you, on similar grounds that you
do - by comparison to others spheres of society.

Post by David

Post by Mikkel Moldrup-Lakjer
I am glad you made that comparison, because I can tell you that
speculating in bying real estate and letting the houses stand empty
until a high price is offered - while other people cannot find a place
to live - is actually illegal in some parts of the world. And no, I'm
not talking about North Korea or Cuba, but about the Western World.

I know, do you know what BUY TO LET is?
If not it means you BUY a property and LET is out to tenants,
therefore the property isn't empty (lot of rental demand in the UK).
You make enough money from the letting to justify tying that amount of
money up (or you could get a mortgage) and the real profit comes when
it's sold (assuming the market moves in the right direction).

This thread was discussing the legitimacy of speculating in buying
domains without intent of using them - but just sitting on them while
waiting for a high price, obstructing their use.

That is more like speculating in real estate like I said, than
renting/letting as you said.

Mikkel

[David]

On Sat, 10 Sep 2005 23:33:31 +0200, Mikkel Moldrup-Lakjer

Post by Mikkel Moldrup-Lakjer

Post by David
I know, do you know what BUY TO LET is?
If not it means you BUY a property and LET is out to tenants,
therefore the property isn't empty (lot of rental demand in the UK).
You make enough money from the letting to justify tying that amount of
money up (or you could get a mortgage) and the real profit comes when
it's sold (assuming the market moves in the right direction).

This thread was discussing the legitimacy of speculating in buying
domains without intent of using them - but just sitting on them while
waiting for a high price, obstructing their use.
That is more like speculating in real estate like I said, than
renting/letting as you said.

Since they tend to put adverts on parked domains for sale you could
argue it's very much like buying a house to let it out before selling
it on for a profit.

It is only an analogy, so you don't expect them to be identical
though.

Post by Mikkel Moldrup-Lakjer
Mikkel

David

[Charles Sweeney]

Post by David
Anyone got any experience of selling domains based on PR, is there a
market?

I've sold a few names, but it was before Google displayed PR, so it wasn't
an issue!

For me PR doesn't mean much, but there's plenty of people who get dribbly
about it, so why not supply them?!

[WD10]

Post by Charles Sweeney

Post by WD10
I hate the people that register domains that they have no use for so
that they can sell them at unfair prices.

I hate people who buy shares in fledgling companies, then sell them for
a huge profit, years later.
It's called speculation. It's as old as the hills, get used to it.

It's different. Buying domain names in order to sell them at unfair
prices is more analogous to scalping tickets than to buying shares in a
company.

Post by Charles Sweeney
Don't worry yourself over it. They don't make any money, but they do
pour millions into the system.

They rip people off -- the "ticket scalpers" of domain names. A common
scenario goes like this: an honest businessman decides one day that they
are ready to get a web site.
He goes to register his business name as a domain name, but some jerk
has purchased it just hoping that eventually some business owner will
have a legitimate need for that domain name. So the business owner has
a couple of choices:
* pay the scalper $3,000 or whatever for the name, which is often not
affordable.
* buy a less desirable version of the domain name, for example, instead of
www.businessname.com he has to buy www.thebusinessname.com or
www.business-name.com And then when customers look up the business name
they get a spam page that tries to fool people into thinking the visitor
has found what they are looking for so that they will click on PPC ads or
affiliate ads.

Buying domain names for no purpose other than to sell them at unfair
prices is as dishonest as ticket scalping. My advice for anyone who has
been involved in this is that if someone comes along looking to buy your
domain names, just calculate your expenses over the years ($35/year or
whatever you were paying), and just charge that to the person. That is
the honest solution.

[Charles Sweeney]

Post by WD10

Post by Charles Sweeney

Post by WD10
I hate the people that register domains that they have no use for so
that they can sell them at unfair prices.

I hate people who buy shares in fledgling companies, then sell them
for a huge profit, years later.
It's called speculation. It's as old as the hills, get used to it.

It's different. Buying domain names in order to sell them at unfair
prices is more analogous to scalping tickets than to buying shares in
a company.

There's no such thing as an unfair price. If the buyer doesn't like the
price, he can walk away. Naturally if the name is a trademark this
becomes extortion, but it will always fail because all such disputes are
won by the trademark owner.

Post by WD10

Post by Charles Sweeney
Don't worry yourself over it. They don't make any money, but they do
pour millions into the system.

They rip people off -- the "ticket scalpers" of domain names. A
common scenario goes like this: an honest businessman decides one day
that they are ready to get a web site.
He goes to register his business name as a domain name, but some jerk
has purchased it just hoping that eventually some business owner will
have a legitimate need for that domain name. So the business owner
* pay the scalper $3,000 or whatever for the name, which is often not
affordable.
* buy a less desirable version of the domain name, for example,
instead of www.businessname.com he has to buy www.thebusinessname.com
or www.business-name.com And then when customers look up the business
name they get a spam page that tries to fool people into thinking the
visitor has found what they are looking for so that they will click on
PPC ads or affiliate ads.
Buying domain names for no purpose other than to sell them at unfair
prices is as dishonest as ticket scalping. My advice for anyone who
has been involved in this is that if someone comes along looking to
buy your domain names, just calculate your expenses over the years
($35/year or whatever you were paying), and just charge that to the
person. That is the honest solution.

If the business name is a trademark, they won't have a problem. If it's
not, then they don't have any more right to the name than anyone else.

The truth is that most people do not make any money, yet they pump
millions into the economy.

[Mikkel Moldrup-Lakjer]

Post by Charles Sweeney
There's no such thing as an unfair price. If the buyer doesn't like the
price, he can walk away.

Wow, you have just disposed of all concepts of black market concert
tickets and other illegal stuff of that kind. Would be fun to hear you
explain that in court if you had to defend a client.

Mikkel

[David]

Post by Charles Sweeney

Post by WD10
Buying domain names for no purpose other than to sell them at unfair
prices is as dishonest as ticket scalping. My advice for anyone who
has been involved in this is that if someone comes along looking to
buy your domain names, just calculate your expenses over the years
($35/year or whatever you were paying), and just charge that to the
person. That is the honest solution.

If the business name is a trademark, they won't have a problem. If it's
not, then they don't have any more right to the name than anyone else.

I had a WIPO dispute on an expired domain I bought a few year back.
Bought it because it was PR5 (just as Google stopped maintaining the
backlinks of expired domains, so was a waste of money in hindsight).

Anyway, the domain was absolutxxx.com and didn't have anything to do
with the vodka Absolut (I'd not heard of it before the problem).
Absolut is a trademark.

The site didn't use the word Absolut in any form other than the domain
name (had no interest in the SERP), so never used it in anchor text,
body text, meta tags (nothing at all).

I lost the domain, supposedly because I was trying to steal their
traffic (searches getting confused) even though never had one hit for
a Absolut related search phrase!

I think the main reason I lost it was because I put a porn site on it.
Absolutxxx made sense as a porn site.

I didn't care much about the domain (site made a few thousand dollars
a year and I could easily transfer it to a new domain) so it wasn't a
big deal to loose it, funny thing is it would have cost the trademark
owner $5,000 to make the WIPO claim, had they offered me a reasonable
sum for the domain ($500 would have been nice) I'd have sold it.
Bought the domain for the PR, which quickly disappeared, so used the
domain because I owned it.

Point is I did nothing wrong, but lost the domain anyway.

I was insulted that they suggested I was a liar since I must have
heard of Absolut Vodka. I've been teetotal for 15 years and when I did
drink alcohol it was lager not spirits.

David

[Charles Sweeney]

Post by David

Post by Charles Sweeney

Post by WD10
Buying domain names for no purpose other than to sell them at unfair
prices is as dishonest as ticket scalping. My advice for anyone who
has been involved in this is that if someone comes along looking to
buy your domain names, just calculate your expenses over the years
($35/year or whatever you were paying), and just charge that to the
person. That is the honest solution.

If the business name is a trademark, they won't have a problem. If it's
not, then they don't have any more right to the name than anyone else.

I had a WIPO dispute on an expired domain I bought a few year back.
Bought it because it was PR5 (just as Google stopped maintaining the
backlinks of expired domains, so was a waste of money in hindsight).
Anyway, the domain was absolutxxx.com and didn't have anything to do
with the vodka Absolut (I'd not heard of it before the problem).
Absolut is a trademark.
The site didn't use the word Absolut in any form other than the domain
name (had no interest in the SERP), so never used it in anchor text,
body text, meta tags (nothing at all).
I lost the domain, supposedly because I was trying to steal their
traffic (searches getting confused) even though never had one hit for
a Absolut related search phrase!
I think the main reason I lost it was because I put a porn site on it.
Absolutxxx made sense as a porn site.
I didn't care much about the domain (site made a few thousand dollars
a year and I could easily transfer it to a new domain) so it wasn't a
big deal to loose it, funny thing is it would have cost the trademark
owner $5,000 to make the WIPO claim, had they offered me a reasonable
sum for the domain ($500 would have been nice) I'd have sold it.
Bought the domain for the PR, which quickly disappeared, so used the
domain because I owned it.
Point is I did nothing wrong, but lost the domain anyway.
I was insulted that they suggested I was a liar since I must have
heard of Absolut Vodka. I've been teetotal for 15 years and when I did
drink alcohol it was lager not spirits.

Thanks for sharing. For what it's worth, I've never heard of Absolut
Vodka either!

I haven't speculated on domains for quite a while, but when I did I
tried to avoid trademarks. I once got a letter from Porsche's lawyers
about a name I had that contained "Porsche" in it. I replied to it,
stating my position, then never heard anything more about it!

[Steve Sobol]

Post by Charles Sweeney
Thanks for sharing. For what it's worth, I've never heard of Absolut
Vodka either!

You don't live in the USA. They do heavy, heavy marketing here. Actually,
*they* don't, Absolut's manufacturer is in Russia - but the company that
imports it into the US markets the hell out of it here. Lots of magazine ads
and billboards...

Post by Charles Sweeney
I haven't speculated on domains for quite a while, but when I did I
tried to avoid trademarks. I once got a letter from Porsche's lawyers
about a name I had that contained "Porsche" in it. I replied to it,
stating my position, then never heard anything more about it!

Yup. The worst thing you can do is ignore the letters like that. Trademark
owners are required by law to vigorously defend their marks, or risk losing
legal trademark protection if they don't.

One of these days I'll share the WebtrendsSucks story with all of you. :)

[Big Bill]

Post by Steve Sobol

Post by Charles Sweeney
Thanks for sharing. For what it's worth, I've never heard of Absolut
Vodka either!

You don't live in the USA. They do heavy, heavy marketing here. Actually,
*they* don't, Absolut's manufacturer is in Russia - but the company that
imports it into the US markets the hell out of it here. Lots of magazine ads
and billboards...

Post by Charles Sweeney
I haven't speculated on domains for quite a while, but when I did I
tried to avoid trademarks. I once got a letter from Porsche's lawyers
about a name I had that contained "Porsche" in it. I replied to it,
stating my position, then never heard anything more about it!

Yup. The worst thing you can do is ignore the letters like that. Trademark
owners are required by law to vigorously defend their marks,

marque

Post by Steve Sobol
or risk losing
legal trademark protection if they don't.

I've had Absolut, probably to no-one's surprise. It's a thick, viscous
vodka, bit syrupy. Nice chunky bottles. Memories, eh?

BB
--
www.kruse.co.uk/ ***@kruse.demon.co.uk
Elvis does my SEO
--

[Steve Sobol]

Post by Big Bill
marque

I'm in the US. Mark. Kindly refrain from correcting my spelling unless I'm
actually misspelling something.

Post by Big Bill

Post by Steve Sobol
or risk losing
legal trademark protection if they don't.

I've had Absolut, probably to no-one's surprise. It's a thick, viscous
vodka, bit syrupy. Nice chunky bottles. Memories, eh?

Actually, I prefer tequila. :)

[Big Bill]

Post by Steve Sobol

Post by Big Bill
marque

I'm in the US. Mark. Kindly refrain from correcting my spelling unless I'm
actually misspelling something.

It's well-known that the US can't spell. It's the Queen's English, not
the President's!

Post by Steve Sobol

Post by Big Bill

Post by Steve Sobol
or risk losing
legal trademark protection if they don't.

I've had Absolut, probably to no-one's surprise. It's a thick, viscous
vodka, bit syrupy. Nice chunky bottles. Memories, eh?

Actually, I prefer tequila. :)

I only had tequila very rarely, it's not something we drink a lot of
over here. Is it tequila that has the worm? I never had the worm,
ever. We might have tequila sunrises, though, with the salt and lemon.
Been a while. Sniff... been a year and a half and a bit, now I think
about it.

BB
--
www.kruse.co.uk/ ***@kruse.demon.co.uk
Elvis does my SEO
--

[Euro Stacey]

Post by Big Bill

Post by Steve Sobol

Post by Big Bill
marque

I'm in the US. Mark. Kindly refrain from correcting my spelling unless I'm
actually misspelling something.

It's well-known that the US can't spell. It's the Queen's English, not
the President's!

Hmm, always wondered why they call it the Queen's English. I mean it was
around before her reign right? :-) Also, I didn't notice to many people in
the UK speaking the Queen's English. For the most part most of the people
didn't even sound like the same dialect.:-) Also, how long has English been
spoken....longer than the Queen right?:-)

Now since the "mark" in question was regarding Trademarks then he would be
correct in stating mark because Trade*mark* isn't spelled Trade*marque*. As
listed in the Cambridge Dictionary--
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/define.asp?key=84276&dict=CALD .

Post by Big Bill

Post by Steve Sobol

Post by Big Bill

Post by Steve Sobol
or risk losing
legal trademark protection if they don't.

I've had Absolut, probably to no-one's surprise. It's a thick, viscous
vodka, bit syrupy. Nice chunky bottles. Memories, eh?

They have new flavored ones now!!!

Post by Big Bill

Post by Steve Sobol
Actually, I prefer tequila. :)

I only had tequila very rarely, it's not something we drink a lot of
over here. Is it tequila that has the worm? I never had the worm,
ever. We might have tequila sunrises, though, with the salt and lemon.
Been a while. Sniff... been a year and a half and a bit, now I think
about it.

Yes, it has the worm. Been there done it and got the T-shirt! Don't worry
you aren't missing a thing! Anyone who prefers Tequila over Vodka is strange
in my book. :-) Vodka and Gin are my favorite(favourite- for you Bill)
liquors.

Stacey

[Big Bill]

On Sun, 11 Sep 2005 18:39:34 +0200, "Euro Stacey"

Post by Euro Stacey

Post by Big Bill

Post by Steve Sobol

Post by Big Bill
marque

I'm in the US. Mark. Kindly refrain from correcting my spelling unless I'm
actually misspelling something.

It's well-known that the US can't spell. It's the Queen's English, not
the President's!

Hmm, always wondered why they call it the Queen's English. I mean it was
around before her reign right? :-)

Which her are we referring to here?

Post by Euro Stacey
Also, I didn't notice to many people in
the UK speaking the Queen's English. For the most part most of the people
didn't even sound like the same dialect.:-) Also, how long has English been
spoken....longer than the Queen right?:-)

Which Queen? Actually I dunno, depends on how you start defining
English. Middle English was used in Chaucerian times but I don't know
when Old English would have been extant.

Post by Euro Stacey
Now since the "mark" in question was regarding Trademarks then he would be
correct in stating mark because Trade*mark* isn't spelled Trade*marque*. As
listed in the Cambridge Dictionary--
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/define.asp?key=84276&dict=CALD .

I've got a feeling it derives from something French like Marcocque or
similar. Dunno where I'd start looking it up though. The Cambridge
will be contemporary, not historical, I'm thinking.

Post by Euro Stacey

Post by Big Bill

Post by Steve Sobol

Post by Big Bill

Post by Steve Sobol
or risk losing
legal trademark protection if they don't.

I've had Absolut, probably to no-one's surprise. It's a thick, viscous
vodka, bit syrupy. Nice chunky bottles. Memories, eh?

They have new flavored ones now!!!

You're just trying to upset me now!

Post by Euro Stacey
Yes, it has the worm. Been there done it and got the T-shirt! Don't worry
you aren't missing a thing! Anyone who prefers Tequila over Vodka is strange
in my book. :-) Vodka and Gin are my favorite(favourite- for you Bill)
liquors.
Stacey

I'm a soda man these days. In a suitably dirty glass, of course.

BB

--
www.kruse.co.uk/ ***@kruse.demon.co.uk
Elvis does my SEO
--

[Euro Stacey]

Post by Big Bill
On Sun, 11 Sep 2005 18:39:34 +0200, "Euro Stacey"

<snip>

Post by Big Bill

Post by Euro Stacey

Post by Big Bill
It's well-known that the US can't spell. It's the Queen's English, not
the President's!

Hmm, always wondered why they call it the Queen's English. I mean it was
around before her reign right? :-)

Which her are we referring to here?

I don't know. To which one were you referring to? :-) Pick one.

Post by Big Bill

Post by Euro Stacey
Also, I didn't notice to many people in
the UK speaking the Queen's English. For the most part most of the people
didn't even sound like the same dialect.:-) Also, how long has English been
spoken....longer than the Queen right?:-)

Which Queen? Actually I dunno, depends on how you start defining
English. Middle English was used in Chaucerian times but I don't know
when Old English would have been extant.

True old English is gone....except in the Bible and Shakespear.:-) So, that
means even the UK now doesn't speak the English the way is was meant to be
either.:-) And the Bible I read is the King James...not a Queen's.

Still doesn't answer my question on why the people call it the Queen's
English?

Post by Big Bill

Post by Euro Stacey
Now since the "mark" in question was regarding Trademarks then he would be
correct in stating mark because Trade*mark* isn't spelled Trade*marque*. As
listed in the Cambridge Dictionary--
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/define.asp?key=84276&dict=CALD .

I've got a feeling it derives from something French like Marcocque or
similar. Dunno where I'd start looking it up though. The Cambridge
will be contemporary, not historical, I'm thinking.

Who knows were it was derived from, "marks" have been used even BC , but it
is still Trademark...not marque. :-) Even in the UK.
http://www.patent.gov.uk/design/history/deshistory.htm .

<snip>

Post by Big Bill

Post by Euro Stacey
They have new flavored ones now!!!

You're just trying to upset me now!

Well, I think the fruity ones were made for the females....not to manly to
drink fruity drinks.:-) So, you still probably aren't missing anything.
<snip>

Post by Big Bill
I'm a soda man these days. In a suitably dirty glass, of course.

To much soda can be bad for you also. The carbonation isn't great, doesn't
hydrate you well enough. Good work on staying on the wagon though!!! It has
been over a year for me and ciggies, trust me over the past month I have
been really craving them.

Stacey

[Big Bill]

On Sun, 11 Sep 2005 20:52:00 +0200, "Euro Stacey"

Post by GEO

Post by Big Bill
On Sun, 11 Sep 2005 18:39:34 +0200, "Euro Stacey"

<snip>

Post by Big Bill

Post by Euro Stacey

Post by Big Bill
It's well-known that the US can't spell. It's the Queen's English, not
the President's!

Hmm, always wondered why they call it the Queen's English. I mean it was
around before her reign right? :-)

Which her are we referring to here?

I don't know. To which one were you referring to? :-) Pick one.

Post by Big Bill

Post by Euro Stacey
Also, I didn't notice to many people in
the UK speaking the Queen's English. For the most part most of the people
didn't even sound like the same dialect.:-) Also, how long has English been
spoken....longer than the Queen right?:-)

Which Queen? Actually I dunno, depends on how you start defining
English. Middle English was used in Chaucerian times but I don't know
when Old English would have been extant.

True old English is gone....except in the Bible and Shakespear.:-) So, that
means even the UK now doesn't speak the English the way is was meant to be
either.:-) And the Bible I read is the King James...not a Queen's.

And, given the way we're being taken over by America (web spelling
with html etc) and the American influence in the media, Buffyspeak and
so on, English peculiar to the UK is fast becoming an out-dated
localised dialect of American.

Post by GEO
Still doesn't answer my question on why the people call it the Queen's
English?

I used to know, I forget.

Post by GEO

Post by Big Bill
I've got a feeling it derives from something French like Marcocque or
similar. Dunno where I'd start looking it up though. The Cambridge
will be contemporary, not historical, I'm thinking.

Who knows were it was derived from, "marks" have been used even BC , but it
is still Trademark...not marque. :-) Even in the UK.
http://www.patent.gov.uk/design/history/deshistory.htm .
<snip>

Post by Big Bill

Post by Euro Stacey
They have new flavored ones now!!!

You're just trying to upset me now!

Well, I think the fruity ones were made for the females....not to manly to
drink fruity drinks.:-) So, you still probably aren't missing anything.
<snip>

Post by Big Bill
I'm a soda man these days. In a suitably dirty glass, of course.

To much soda can be bad for you also. The carbonation isn't great, doesn't
hydrate you well enough.

I heard that.

Post by GEO
Good work on staying on the wagon though!!! It has
been over a year for me and ciggies, trust me over the past month I have
been really craving them.

I don't miss drinking particularly. It means time can hang heavy on my
hands despite having tons to do always as I miss being able to throw
it all up in the air and just have a few beers, shoot the breeze with
the guys. But two pubs immediately local to me have closed, regular
drinking buddies have died or moved away, so maybe I'd be missing beer
with the buds even if I wasn't dry now.

BB
--
www.kruse.co.uk/ ***@kruse.demon.co.uk
Elvis does my SEO
--

[Paul N Burke]

Post by Big Bill

Post by Euro Stacey
Still doesn't answer my question on why the people call it the Queen's
English?

I used to know, I forget.

Don't you mean .............. "One used to know, but one now forgets"
<G>

[Euro Stacey]

Post by Paul N Burke

Post by Big Bill

Post by Euro Stacey
Still doesn't answer my question on why the people call it the Queen's
English?

I used to know, I forget.

Don't you mean .............. "One used to know, but one now forgets"
<G>

"We are not amused". LOL!!! Another thing I couldn't figure out *we*...she
must have multiple personalities.:-)

Stacey

[Paul N Burke]

On Sun, 11 Sep 2005 21:40:05 +0200, "Euro Stacey"

Post by Euro Stacey

Post by Paul N Burke

Post by Big Bill

Post by Euro Stacey
Still doesn't answer my question on why the people call it the Queen's
English?

I used to know, I forget.

Don't you mean .............. "One used to know, but one now forgets"
<G>

"We are not amused". LOL!!! Another thing I couldn't figure out *we*...she
must have multiple personalities.:-)
Stacey

It was one of those things that was *supposedly * said by Queen
Victoria.

The "we" is a "Royal we" ....... but surely, it would have been more
correct for her to have said "One is not amused"

A "Royal we" is a monarch's use of the first person plural when
referring to him/herself.

plh
Paul
(Who doesn't like Royalty)

[Borek]

Post by Paul N Burke
A "Royal we" is a monarch's use of the first person plural when
referring to him/herself.

So called pluralis majestatis :)

Best,
Borek

[Paul N Burke]

On Sun, 11 Sep 2005 22:34:37 +0200, Borek

Post by Borek

Post by Paul N Burke
A "Royal we" is a monarch's use of the first person plural when
referring to him/herself.

So called pluralis majestatis :)
Best,
Borek

That's sooooooo annus horribilis <g>

[David]

On Sun, 11 Sep 2005 21:40:05 +0200, "Euro Stacey"

Post by Euro Stacey

Post by Paul N Burke

Post by Big Bill
I used to know, I forget.

Don't you mean .............. "One used to know, but one now forgets"
<G>

"We are not amused". LOL!!! Another thing I couldn't figure out *we*...she
must have multiple personalities.:-)
Stacey

No, the royal family was taken over by the Borg centuries ago :-)

David

[Big Bill]

On Sun, 11 Sep 2005 14:25:46 -0500, Paul N Burke

Post by Paul N Burke

Post by Big Bill

Post by Euro Stacey
Still doesn't answer my question on why the people call it the Queen's
English?

I used to know, I forget.

Don't you mean .............. "One used to know, but one now forgets"
<G>

You know how one is!

BB
--
www.kruse.co.uk/ ***@kruse.demon.co.uk
Elvis does my SEO
--

[David]

On Sun, 11 Sep 2005 20:52:00 +0200, "Euro Stacey"

Post by Euro Stacey
True old English is gone....except in the Bible and Shakespear.:-) So, that
means even the UK now doesn't speak the English the way is was meant to be
either.:-) And the Bible I read is the King James...not a Queen's.
Still doesn't answer my question on why the people call it the Queen's
English?

Because only the Queen can speak it 'properly' :-))

Not a fan of royalty, bunch of freeloaders!

David

[Paul N Burke]

On Sun, 11 Sep 2005 18:39:34 +0200, "Euro Stacey"

Post by Euro Stacey

Post by Big Bill

Post by Steve Sobol

Post by Big Bill
marque

I'm in the US. Mark. Kindly refrain from correcting my spelling unless I'm
actually misspelling something.

It's well-known that the US can't spell. It's the Queen's English, not
the President's!

Hmm, always wondered why they call it the Queen's English. I mean it was
around before her reign right? :-) Also, I didn't notice to many people in
the UK speaking the Queen's English. For the most part most of the people
didn't even sound like the same dialect.:-) Also, how long has English been
spoken....longer than the Queen right?:-)

Not only that, the Queen is German, and not even English.

[Wÿrm]

"Euro Stacey" <***@staceyssimplestuff.com> kirjoitti
viestissä:dg1mk2$k6i$00$***@news.t-online.com...

<snip>

Post by Euro Stacey
Yes, it has the worm.

Nope, it's not _exactly_ tequila that has that worm. :) It's mescal
actually, basically almost same stuff but different name.

[Steve Sobol]

Post by Big Bill

Post by Steve Sobol
I'm in the US. Mark. Kindly refrain from correcting my spelling unless I'm
actually misspelling something.

It's well-known that the US can't spell. It's the Queen's English, not
the President's!

It's American English, dammit. :)

Post by Big Bill

Post by Steve Sobol
Actually, I prefer tequila. :)

I only had tequila very rarely, it's not something we drink a lot of
over here. Is it tequila that has the worm? I never had the worm,
ever. We might have tequila sunrises, though, with the salt and lemon.
Been a while. Sniff... been a year and a half and a bit, now I think
about it.

Some types of tequila have the worm (I believe you're referring to mezcal).

Most of my friends call it "ToKillYa" and refuse to drink it.

[Big Bill]

Post by Steve Sobol

Post by Big Bill

Post by Steve Sobol
I'm in the US. Mark. Kindly refrain from correcting my spelling unless I'm
actually misspelling something.

It's well-known that the US can't spell. It's the Queen's English, not
the President's!

It's American English, dammit. :)

Post by Big Bill

Post by Steve Sobol
Actually, I prefer tequila. :)

I only had tequila very rarely, it's not something we drink a lot of
over here. Is it tequila that has the worm? I never had the worm,
ever. We might have tequila sunrises, though, with the salt and lemon.
Been a while. Sniff... been a year and a half and a bit, now I think
about it.

Some types of tequila have the worm (I believe you're referring to mezcal).

Nope, mescal. That's the stuff with the psychedelic worm. I never had
that either.

Post by Steve Sobol
Most of my friends call it "ToKillYa" and refuse to drink it.

I'll have theirs. Tell'em to stash it and I'll be over.

BB
--
www.kruse.co.uk/ ***@kruse.demon.co.uk
Elvis does my SEO
--

[Steve Sobol]

Post by Big Bill
Nope, mescal.

There you go again...

Post by Big Bill

Post by Steve Sobol
Most of my friends call it "ToKillYa" and refuse to drink it.

I'll have theirs. Tell'em to stash it and I'll be over.

That's how I feel.

[Wÿrm]

"Steve Sobol" <***@JustThe.net> kirjoitti
viestissä:dg0234$u1i$***@ratbert.glorb.com...

<snip>

Post by Steve Sobol
You don't live in the USA. They do heavy, heavy marketing here. Actually,
*they* don't, Absolut's manufacturer is in Russia.

O_o Damn those Swedish buggers are smart if they're from Russia instead.
Last time I checked (It's been quite a while though) Absolut Vodka was made
in Sweden and is their pride and joy as alcohol export to USA :) I think
their "bottle" design was inspired by some medical bottles of 18th and 19th
century or something.

[Steve Sobol]

Post by Wÿrm

Post by Steve Sobol
You don't live in the USA. They do heavy, heavy marketing here. Actually,
*they* don't, Absolut's manufacturer is in Russia.

O_o Damn those Swedish buggers are smart if they're from Russia instead.
Last time I checked (It's been quite a while though) Absolut Vodka was made
in Sweden and is their pride and joy as alcohol export to USA :) I think
their "bottle" design was inspired by some medical bottles of 18th and 19th
century or something.

ack, for some reason I was thinking of Smirnoff, another vodka brand heavily
marketed here. I don't drink vodka (can you tell?) - which probably
contributed to me confusing the two brands.

And browsing through the brand's website and the site of the company that
produces it, I find that it's now produced in the US :) (not sure how much
production is still done over in Russia, if any.)

[Wÿrm]

"Steve Sobol" <***@JustThe.net> kirjoitti
viestissä:dg0h97$vre$***@ratbert.glorb.com...

<snip>

Post by Steve Sobol
ack, for some reason I was thinking of Smirnoff, another vodka brand
heavily marketed here. I don't drink vodka (can you tell?) - which
probably contributed to me confusing the two brands.

heh, that happens sometimes :) I wonder if Finlandia Vodka's marketed much
there too. One point it was, and they're making and bottling it just few km
from here. Anyway, I don't drink vodkas either, sometimes rum+coke and
mostly (way too often it seems) just beer :D

<snip>

[Big Bill]

On Sun, 11 Sep 2005 09:27:23 +0300, "Wÿrm"

Post by GEO
<snip>

Post by Steve Sobol
ack, for some reason I was thinking of Smirnoff, another vodka brand
heavily marketed here. I don't drink vodka (can you tell?) - which
probably contributed to me confusing the two brands.

heh, that happens sometimes :) I wonder if Finlandia Vodka's marketed much
there too. One point it was, and they're making and bottling it just few km
from here. Anyway, I don't drink vodkas either, sometimes rum+coke and
mostly (way too often it seems) just beer :D

I was reading that they've stopped brewing Guinness at Park Royal in
the UK and in future it'll all have to be made from Liffy water from
Ireland. Presumably this will make a radical difference to its
qualities. I'll have to ask someone, I suppose. Sob.

BB
--
www.kruse.co.uk/ ***@kruse.demon.co.uk
Elvis does my SEO
--

[Steve Sobol]

Post by Big Bill
I was reading that they've stopped brewing Guinness at Park Royal in
the UK and in future it'll all have to be made from Liffy water from
Ireland. Presumably this will make a radical difference to its
qualities. I'll have to ask someone, I suppose. Sob.

That would suck. Guinness's flavor is... unique. :)

[Jerry Stuckle]

Post by Steve Sobol

Post by Big Bill
I was reading that they've stopped brewing Guinness at Park Royal in
the UK and in future it'll all have to be made from Liffy water from
Ireland. Presumably this will make a radical difference to its
qualities. I'll have to ask someone, I suppose. Sob.

That would suck. Guinness's flavor is... unique. :)

We had brunch at an Irish restaurant today. They make their own ice
cream - which I love. When I asked what today's flavors were, one of
the answers was "Guinness"... Guinness, yes. Ice cream, yes. Guinness
ice cream? Nah.

[Big Bill]

Post by Steve Sobol

Post by Big Bill
I was reading that they've stopped brewing Guinness at Park Royal in
the UK and in future it'll all have to be made from Liffy water from
Ireland. Presumably this will make a radical difference to its
qualities. I'll have to ask someone, I suppose. Sob.

That would suck. Guinness's flavor is... unique. :)

It isn't, actually, as there are already two flavours. Three if we
start bringing the bottled varieties into the discussion. Four with
the canned. But with the draught, legend has it that a pint poured in
Ireland is completely different from one poured anywhere else in the
world due, they say, to it's being made from the local water.
Hopefully I'll make it one day. I'm half-Irish and I've never even
been there.

BB
--
www.kruse.co.uk/ ***@kruse.demon.co.uk
Elvis does my SEO
--

[Wÿrm]

"Big Bill" <***@cityscape.co.uk> kirjoitti
viestissä:***@4ax.com...

<snip>

Post by Big Bill
It isn't, actually, as there are already two flavours. Three if we
start bringing the bottled varieties into the discussion.

Guinness... mmmmmmm *homer simpson drool* I like it, then again I like any
dark stout stuffs, and no matter what, guinness seems to taste best in
ireland :D

Sadly I get only canned stuff in here from local shops (bad side of living
in small village), besides some KilKenny stuff that's very good. Murphy's
stout is what I get in some bars in capital city here, and it's actually
quite good.

From our native Finnish beers, I'd recommend anyone a sinebrychoffs Porter,
that's pitch black. Even one cm of that on pint and you can not see through
it. Awesome stuff...

[Mark Parnell]

Previously in
alt.internet.search-engines,alt.www.webmaster,comp.infosystems.www.authoring.html,

Post by Wÿrm
Sadly I get only canned stuff in here from local shops (bad side of living
in small village), besides some KilKenny stuff that's very good. Murphy's
stout is what I get in some bars in capital city here, and it's actually
quite good.

We have an Irish pub not far from home. They got Guinness on tap a
couple of years ago. Pity I don't like it... <ducks>

[Wÿrm]

"Mark Parnell" <***@clarkecomputers.com.au> kirjoitti
viestissä:***@markparnell.com.au...

<snip>

Post by Mark Parnell
We have an Irish pub not far from home. They got Guinness on tap a
couple of years ago. Pity I don't like it... <ducks>

:D *throws an empty guinness can* ;) hehe. *mutters* damn buggr!

Only goes to show that each have their own taste on things :) Most beer I
drink is Finnish "mass lager" and they're very predictable and typical stuff
:) Like now, I've gulleted lots and lots beer, mainly as byproduct of
watching documentaries all night when I was supposed to do something else :D
ANy minute now I need to half-wobble shop near by to get some more beer (I
just like when one is not tied to some certain timetable and can act as feel
in the moment) so i can finish two or so episodes more of some BBC
documentaries about predators :)

[Mark Parnell]

Previously in
alt.internet.search-engines,alt.www.webmaster,comp.infosystems.www.authoring.html,

Post by Wÿrm
Only goes to show that each have their own taste on things :) Most beer I
drink is Finnish "mass lager" and they're very predictable and typical stuff

I just don't like beer at all. Guinness is one of the least dreadful -
far better than Australian beer :-) but I still can't drink it.

[Els]

Post by Mark Parnell
Previously in
alt.internet.search-engines,alt.www.webmaster,comp.infosystems.www.authoring.html,

Post by Wÿrm
Only goes to show that each have their own taste on things :) Most beer I
drink is Finnish "mass lager" and they're very predictable and typical stuff

I just don't like beer at all. Guinness is one of the least dreadful -
far better than Australian beer :-) but I still can't drink it.

Me neither, with one exception: Belgian cherry ('Kriek') or raspberry
('Framboise') beer. Must admit it doesn't taste like beer though :-)
http://www.belgianstyle.com/mmguide/style/lambic.html

[Wÿrm]

"Els" <***@tiscali.nl> kirjoitti
viestissä:7kc8s7icbhu4$***@locusmeus.com...

<snip>

Post by Els

Post by Mark Parnell
I just don't like beer at all. Guinness is one of the least dreadful -
far better than Australian beer :-) but I still can't drink it.

I'll prolly drink then even your part of the beer ;D Maybe better so, more
beer for me =)

Post by Els
Me neither, with one exception: Belgian cherry ('Kriek') or raspberry
('Framboise') beer. Must admit it doesn't taste like beer though :-)
http://www.belgianstyle.com/mmguide/style/lambic.html

O_o you weird people you :) Beer is a nectar from heavens ;)) There are
very many different style beers, depending what kinda stuff one likes, not
just mainstream stuff. Sadly people are not aware of those :P

[Mark Parnell]

Previously in
alt.internet.search-engines,alt.www.webmaster,comp.infosystems.www.authoring.html,

Post by Wÿrm
I'll prolly drink then even your part of the beer ;D Maybe better so, more
beer for me =)

You're welcome to it. :-)

Post by Wÿrm
O_o you weird people you :) Beer is a nectar from heavens ;)) There are
very many different style beers, depending what kinda stuff one likes, not
just mainstream stuff. Sadly people are not aware of those :P

Depends on how wide your definition of beer is I suppose. :-)

[Big Bill]

Post by Steve Sobol

Post by Wÿrm

Post by Steve Sobol
You don't live in the USA. They do heavy, heavy marketing here. Actually,
*they* don't, Absolut's manufacturer is in Russia.

O_o Damn those Swedish buggers are smart if they're from Russia instead.
Last time I checked (It's been quite a while though) Absolut Vodka was made
in Sweden and is their pride and joy as alcohol export to USA :) I think
their "bottle" design was inspired by some medical bottles of 18th and 19th
century or something.

ack, for some reason I was thinking of Smirnoff, another vodka brand heavily
marketed here. I don't drink vodka (can you tell?)

Not so far.

Post by Steve Sobol
- which probably
contributed to me confusing the two brands.
And browsing through the brand's website and the site of the company that
produces it, I find that it's now produced in the US :) (not sure how much
production is still done over in Russia, if any.)

Not much of anything, it's all Chinese now.

BB
--
www.kruse.co.uk/ ***@kruse.demon.co.uk
Elvis does my SEO
--

[Steve Sobol]

Post by Big Bill

Post by Steve Sobol
And browsing through the brand's website and the site of the company that
produces it, I find that it's now produced in the US :) (not sure how much
production is still done over in Russia, if any.)

Not much of anything, it's all Chinese now.

They didn't mention that on the website. I surfed from smirnoff.com to
diageo.com, Diageo being the company that now owns the brand, and on the
page discussing the brand's history, they note the start of American
production, but don't say anything about moving production to China. I don't
think I should be too surprised. :)

[Big Bill]

Post by Steve Sobol

Post by Big Bill

Post by Steve Sobol
And browsing through the brand's website and the site of the company that
produces it, I find that it's now produced in the US :) (not sure how much
production is still done over in Russia, if any.)

Not much of anything, it's all Chinese now.

They didn't mention that on the website. I surfed from smirnoff.com to
diageo.com, Diageo being the company that now owns the brand, and on the
page discussing the brand's history, they note the start of American
production, but don't say anything about moving production to China. I don't
think I should be too surprised. :)

I was being ironic.

BB
--
www.kruse.co.uk/ ***@kruse.demon.co.uk
Elvis does my SEO
--

[Big Bill]

On Sun, 11 Sep 2005 09:03:54 +0300, "Wÿrm"

Post by GEO
<snip>

Post by Steve Sobol
You don't live in the USA. They do heavy, heavy marketing here. Actually,
*they* don't, Absolut's manufacturer is in Russia.

O_o Damn those Swedish buggers are smart if they're from Russia instead.
Last time I checked (It's been quite a while though) Absolut Vodka was made
in Sweden and is their pride and joy as alcohol export to USA :) I think
their "bottle" design was inspired by some medical bottles of 18th and 19th
century or something.

Perhaps it was based around the idea that if it tastes bad, it must be
good for you.

BB

--
www.kruse.co.uk/ ***@kruse.demon.co.uk
Elvis does my SEO
--

[Wÿrm]

"Big Bill" <***@cityscape.co.uk> kirjoitti
viestissä:***@4ax.com...

<snip>

Post by Big Bill
Perhaps it was based around the idea that if it tastes bad, it must be
good for you.

Or, worse it tastes, faster it gets you better? :) There is this old Finnish
saying here that if booze, tar and sauna do not help, disease is fatal :D

[David]

Post by Steve Sobol

Post by Charles Sweeney
Thanks for sharing. For what it's worth, I've never heard of Absolut
Vodka either!

You don't live in the USA. They do heavy, heavy marketing here. Actually,
*they* don't, Absolut's manufacturer is in Russia - but the company that
imports it into the US markets the hell out of it here. Lots of magazine ads
and billboards...

I live in the UK and can honestly say I don't remember seeing an ad
for Absolut Vodka, I never read magazines or newspapers, so it would
have to be a TV ad campaign to realistically get to me. I recall in
the WIPO info something about a 90% coverage in advertising or
something, well if 90% of people know about the brand that means 10%
do not, is it so hard for them to believe I'm one of the 10%!

Feel really insulted, basically called me a liar which allowed them to
make up reasons to take the domain! If I'm telling the truth my
understanding is they didn't satisfy the criteria for transferring the
domain.

It's a conspiracy :-))

Post by Steve Sobol

Post by Charles Sweeney
I haven't speculated on domains for quite a while, but when I did I
tried to avoid trademarks. I once got a letter from Porsche's lawyers
about a name I had that contained "Porsche" in it. I replied to it,
stating my position, then never heard anything more about it!

Yup. The worst thing you can do is ignore the letters like that. Trademark
owners are required by law to vigorously defend their marks, or risk losing
legal trademark protection if they don't.

I got a email first and thought they were trying it on. I've had
similar emails regarding the use of phrases companies say they have
trademarks for (first time for a domain name though). I responded
saying I thought they didn't have a hope in winning a claim (though to
be honest I'd not looked into how it worked, so was basing it on a
laymen's understanding), but if they feel they have a case contact me
by snail mail. Next thing I get is the WIPO info!

Post by Steve Sobol
One of these days I'll share the WebtrendsSucks story with all of you. :)

??

David

[Big Bill]

On Sun, 11 Sep 2005 16:35:55 GMT, David

Post by David

Post by Steve Sobol

Post by Charles Sweeney
Thanks for sharing. For what it's worth, I've never heard of Absolut
Vodka either!

You don't live in the USA. They do heavy, heavy marketing here. Actually,
*they* don't, Absolut's manufacturer is in Russia - but the company that
imports it into the US markets the hell out of it here. Lots of magazine ads
and billboards...

I live in the UK and can honestly say I don't remember seeing an ad
for Absolut Vodka, I never read magazines or newspapers, so it would
have to be a TV ad campaign to realistically get to me.

It would have needed to be written on a bottle to get to me. Oh, hey;
it did!

BB
--
www.kruse.co.uk/ ***@kruse.demon.co.uk
Elvis does my SEO
--

[unknown]

Post by David
I live in the UK and can honestly say I don't remember seeing an ad
for Absolut Vodka, I never read magazines or newspapers, so it would
have to be a TV ad campaign to realistically get to me. I recall in
the WIPO info something about a 90% coverage in advertising or
something, well if 90% of people know about the brand that means 10%
do not, is it so hard for them to believe I'm one of the 10%!
Feel really insulted, basically called me a liar which allowed them to
make up reasons to take the domain! If I'm telling the truth my
understanding is they didn't satisfy the criteria for transferring the
domain.

Section 4(b)(iv) of http://www.icann.org/udrp/udrp-policy-24oct99.htm
I presume? They had no choice; in order to try to take your domain
away they had to accuse you of bad faith. You weren't able to provide
a good reason why you chose the name absolutxx insead of, say, exxonxx
or microsoftxx or pepsixx. I rather suspect that whoever registered
it first *was* doing so in bad faith.

[David]

On Sun, 11 Sep 2005 18:58:38 +0000, Guy Macon

Post by unknown

Post by David
Feel really insulted, basically called me a liar which allowed them to
make up reasons to take the domain! If I'm telling the truth my
understanding is they didn't satisfy the criteria for transferring the
domain.

Section 4(b)(iv) of http://www.icann.org/udrp/udrp-policy-24oct99.htm
I presume? They had no choice; in order to try to take your domain
away they had to accuse you of bad faith.

That's right-

=============================================
b. Evidence of Registration and Use in Bad Faith. For the purposes of
Paragraph 4(a)(iii), the following circumstances, in particular but
without limitation, if found by the Panel to be present, shall be
evidence of the registration and use of a domain name in bad faith:

(i) circumstances indicating that you have registered or you have
acquired the domain name primarily for the purpose of selling,
renting, or otherwise transferring the domain name registration to the
complainant who is the owner of the trademark or service mark or to a
competitor of that complainant, for valuable consideration in excess
of your documented out-of-pocket costs directly related to the domain
name; or

(ii) you have registered the domain name in order to prevent the owner
of the trademark or service mark from reflecting the mark in a
corresponding domain name, provided that you have engaged in a pattern
of such conduct; or

(iii) you have registered the domain name primarily for the purpose of
disrupting the business of a competitor; or

(iv) by using the domain name, you have intentionally attempted to
attract, for commercial gain, Internet users to your web site or other
on-line location, by creating a likelihood of confusion with the
complainant's mark as to the source, sponsorship, affiliation, or
endorsement of your web site or location or of a product or service on
your web site or location.
=============================================

They based the decision on iv, and it wasn't true. In
alt.internet.search-engines we know how search engines work and as I
didn't use the words Absolut, Vodka or any derivative and the domain
name wasn't hyphenated there is no way the site could attract searches
who were looking for Absolut Vodka type content. The decision was
total bull.

Post by unknown
You weren't able to provide
a good reason why you chose the name absolutxx insead of, say, exxonxx
or microsoftxx or pepsixx. I rather suspect that whoever registered
it first *was* doing so in bad faith.

Your suspicion is probably correct about the original registrant, but
I registered it in good faith because it was PR5 and wanted some cheap
PR (which I didn't get because Google changed the way it treats
expired domain at the same time!).

It was the only expired domain I've registered for PR as well :-)

The reality was there was no bad faith, so I was screwed.

David

[unknown]

Post by David

Post by unknown

Post by David
Feel really insulted, basically called me a liar which allowed them to
make up reasons to take the domain! If I'm telling the truth my
understanding is they didn't satisfy the criteria for transferring the
domain.

Section 4(b)(iv) of http://www.icann.org/udrp/udrp-policy-24oct99.htm
I presume? They had no choice; in order to try to take your domain
away they had to accuse you of bad faith.

That's right-
=============================================
b. Evidence of Registration and Use in Bad Faith. For the purposes of
Paragraph 4(a)(iii), the following circumstances, in particular but
without limitation, if found by the Panel to be present, shall be
(i) circumstances indicating that you have registered or you have
acquired the domain name primarily for the purpose of selling,
renting, or otherwise transferring the domain name registration to the
complainant who is the owner of the trademark or service mark or to a
competitor of that complainant, for valuable consideration in excess
of your documented out-of-pocket costs directly related to the domain
name; or
(ii) you have registered the domain name in order to prevent the owner
of the trademark or service mark from reflecting the mark in a
corresponding domain name, provided that you have engaged in a pattern
of such conduct; or
(iii) you have registered the domain name primarily for the purpose of
disrupting the business of a competitor; or
(iv) by using the domain name, you have intentionally attempted to
attract, for commercial gain, Internet users to your web site or other
on-line location, by creating a likelihood of confusion with the
complainant's mark as to the source, sponsorship, affiliation, or
endorsement of your web site or location or of a product or service on
your web site or location.
=============================================
They based the decision on iv, and it wasn't true. In
alt.internet.search-engines we know how search engines work and as I
didn't use the words Absolut, Vodka or any derivative and the domain
name wasn't hyphenated there is no way the site could attract searches
who were looking for Absolut Vodka type content. The decision was
total bull.

Post by unknown
You weren't able to provide
a good reason why you chose the name absolutxx insead of, say, exxonxx
or microsoftxx or pepsixx. I rather suspect that whoever registered
it first *was* doing so in bad faith.

Your suspicion is probably correct about the original registrant, but
I registered it in good faith because it was PR5 and wanted some cheap
PR (which I didn't get because Google changed the way it treats
expired domain at the same time!).
It was the only expired domain I've registered for PR as well :-)
The reality was there was no bad faith, so I was screwed.

I fully agree that there was no bad faith. Alas, the judge did not
come to the same conclusion. I think he was wrong. *unless*...

...Unless the laws are such that the bad faith "transfers". I can
see why such a law might be written; to foil those who would register
in bad faith and then sell/give the domain to an innocent third party.
Sort of like what happens if you innocently try to sell stolen property
or innocently try to pass a counterfeit $20 bill; they take it away from
you even though that seems unfair. This is speculation, of course;
a lawyer might know whether I am right.

[Steve Sobol]

Post by Steve Sobol
One of these days I'll share the WebtrendsSucks story with all of you. :)

??

Alright, I'll make this quick.

After fighting with WebTrends forever, trying to get it to properly generate
reports on a Linux server, I finally got pissed off and registered
WebtrendsSucks.com.

Never used it to host email, a website or anything else.

WebTrends Corp. (which, back then, owned the WebTrends products) had a
prominent Intellectual Property lawyer from Portland, Oregon (their
hometown) send me a letter threatening a lawsuit because I was "disparaging"
their trademark. Actually, they threatened to take back the domain either
using ICANN's dispute resolution policy or a lawsuit.

Aside from being rather amused at the use of the word "disparaging" - I
decided to write the attorney back and explain that yes, I certainly did
register the domain, and here's why (went into detail about the high suckage
level of the particular product I was using, and the fact that repeated
calls to tech support didn't help).

Well, the attorney forwarded my comments to someone at WebTrends Corp;
another attorney, but one who was employed by the company, as opposed to
being outside counsel. We started talking, and I said that I was sensitive
to the company's concerns and did want to resolve the situation, but that I
had spent a lot of time trying to get their log analyzer to work properly,
and couldn't.

This particular dispute came to a good conclusion. We reached a settlement
where they gave us a significantly more expensive product (one that worked!)
to compensate for all of the problems we had; I gave ownership of the
domain to them.

Could have ended up a lot worse.

[Wÿrm]

"David" <***@search-engine-optimization-services.co.uk> kirjoitti
viestissä:***@4ax.com...

<snip>

Post by David
I live in the UK and can honestly say I don't remember seeing an ad
for Absolut Vodka

It's swedish vodka and their main marketing areas (in 80's and 90's) were
USA, and they put most effort to there. Later on they have tried marked
stuff in europe too but drinking culture varies from country to another so
they haven't been as successfull as in their campaign to conquer usa :)

[Jerry Stuckle]

Post by Charles Sweeney

Post by David

Post by Charles Sweeney

Post by WD10
Buying domain names for no purpose other than to sell them at unfair
prices is as dishonest as ticket scalping. My advice for anyone who
has been involved in this is that if someone comes along looking to
buy your domain names, just calculate your expenses over the years
($35/year or whatever you were paying), and just charge that to the
person. That is the honest solution.

If the business name is a trademark, they won't have a problem. If

it's

Post by David

Post by Charles Sweeney
not, then they don't have any more right to the name than anyone else.

I had a WIPO dispute on an expired domain I bought a few year back.
Bought it because it was PR5 (just as Google stopped maintaining the
backlinks of expired domains, so was a waste of money in hindsight).
Anyway, the domain was absolutxxx.com and didn't have anything to do
with the vodka Absolut (I'd not heard of it before the problem).
Absolut is a trademark.
The site didn't use the word Absolut in any form other than the domain
name (had no interest in the SERP), so never used it in anchor text,
body text, meta tags (nothing at all).
I lost the domain, supposedly because I was trying to steal their
traffic (searches getting confused) even though never had one hit for
a Absolut related search phrase!
I think the main reason I lost it was because I put a porn site on it.
Absolutxxx made sense as a porn site.
I didn't care much about the domain (site made a few thousand dollars
a year and I could easily transfer it to a new domain) so it wasn't a
big deal to loose it, funny thing is it would have cost the trademark
owner $5,000 to make the WIPO claim, had they offered me a reasonable
sum for the domain ($500 would have been nice) I'd have sold it.
Bought the domain for the PR, which quickly disappeared, so used the
domain because I owned it.
Point is I did nothing wrong, but lost the domain anyway.
I was insulted that they suggested I was a liar since I must have
heard of Absolut Vodka. I've been teetotal for 15 years and when I did
drink alcohol it was lager not spirits.

Thanks for sharing. For what it's worth, I've never heard of Absolut
Vodka either!
I haven't speculated on domains for quite a while, but when I did I
tried to avoid trademarks. I once got a letter from Porsche's lawyers
about a name I had that contained "Porsche" in it. I replied to it,
stating my position, then never heard anything more about it!

Ah, you're missing a fairly decent "premium" vodka. Not as good as many
Russian vodkas, but it beats the hell out of American ones. Priced
between the two, also.

There's nothing like a good very dry vodka martini!

[Charles Sweeney]

Post by Jerry Stuckle
Ah, you're missing a fairly decent "premium" vodka. Not as good as many
Russian vodkas, but it beats the hell out of American ones. Priced
between the two, also.

Smirnoff is the biggest seller here (UK). I don't care for vodka much.
Whisky would be my first choice spirit.

[David]

Post by Charles Sweeney

Post by Jerry Stuckle
Ah, you're missing a fairly decent "premium" vodka. Not as good as many
Russian vodkas, but it beats the hell out of American ones. Priced
between the two, also.

Smirnoff is the biggest seller here (UK). I don't care for vodka much.
Whisky would be my first choice spirit.

I have heard of Smirnoff Vodka :-)

David

[Guy Macon]

Post by David
Anyway, the domain was absolutxxx.com and didn't have anything to do
with the vodka Absolut (I'd not heard of it before the problem).

It never occured to you to look at http://absolut.com/ and see who
owns it?

[David]

On Sun, 11 Sep 2005 01:38:35 +0000, Guy Macon

Post by Guy Macon

Post by David
Anyway, the domain was absolutxxx.com and didn't have anything to do
with the vodka Absolut (I'd not heard of it before the problem).

It never occured to you to look at http://absolut.com/ and see who
owns it?

If you mean prior to the problem, why would I?

Did you check http://guy.com/ http://macon.com/ http://maco.com/
http://guymac.com/ or any other derivative of your domain are any of
these trademarks, did you check?

then there's .net, .co.uk, .us, .org etc... tlds.

Where does it end!

If they want to push it, it could be argued http://mac.com/ could own
your domain (pushing it a LOT :-)).

I didn't know or care to know that Absolut is the Swedish word for
Absolute. I assumed the first owner meant Absolute XXX but couldn't
get it because someone else had it. So I thought it was completely
made up, misspelling at best. Searchers do use "Absolut(e) 'adult
word'" in searches.

I also believed there had to be real confusion, the reality was there
was no confusion on the part of real searches, the domain could not be
found for the trademark Absolut or a derivative. You could only find
it with a search for absolutxxx and that was it, since they don't own
a trademark for absolutxxx I'm still irritated at the decision, but
financially speaking it wasn't worth pursuing.

Just done a check and I have some pages that sell Absolut Vodka
related products, so could legitimately aim for that and similar SERPs
:-)

David

[unknown]

Post by David

Post by Guy Macon

Post by David
Anyway, the domain was absolutxxx.com and didn't have anything to do
with the vodka Absolut (I'd not heard of it before the problem).

It never occured to you to look at http://absolut.com/ and see who
owns it?

If you mean prior to the problem, why would I?

In order to discover whether you are about to infringe on a trademark.

Post by David
Did you check http://guy.com/ http://macon.com/ http://maco.com/
http://guymac.com/ or any other derivative of your domain are any of
these trademarks, did you check?

Of those, only guy and macon.com would be possible trademark
violations, and yes, I did check them even though they are
common words. If I was registering guymacxx or macoxx I would
have checked guymac and maco to see if they are trademarks.

Post by David
then there's .net, .co.uk, .us, .org etc... tlds.
Where does it end!

It ends with .com and .org. Anyone who is serious enough about
going after the owner of examplexx.com will either already own
example.com or example.org, or will have gone after the owners
of those domains and failed to prevail.

Post by David
If they want to push it, it could be argued http://mac.com/ could own
your domain (pushing it a LOT :-)).

I am not suggesting hours of checking to find obscure trademarks
that are a real push. I am suggesting three minutes checking the
obvious.

Post by David
I didn't know or care to know that Absolut is the Swedish word for
Absolute. I assumed the first owner meant Absolute XXX but couldn't
get it because someone else had it. So I thought it was completely
made up, misspelling at best. Searchers do use "Absolut(e) 'adult
word'" in searches.

Three minutes would have made you aware that absolut is a trademark.

Post by David
I also believed there had to be real confusion, the reality was there
was no confusion on the part of real searches, the domain could not be
found for the trademark Absolut or a derivative. You could only find
it with a search for absolutxxx and that was it, since they don't own
a trademark for absolutxxx I'm still irritated at the decision, but
financially speaking it wasn't worth pursuing.

That is a different issue. I have no problem with you knowing that
absolut is a trademark and deciding that you aren't infringing. That's
your call. I do have a problem with you not knowing that absolut is
a trademark when three minutes of effort would have discovered that it
was. I don't understand why you would prefer being ignorant to putting
in a minimal effort.

[Big Bill]

On Sun, 11 Sep 2005 18:28:33 +0000, Guy Macon

Post by unknown

Post by David

Post by Guy Macon

Post by David
Anyway, the domain was absolutxxx.com and didn't have anything to do
with the vodka Absolut (I'd not heard of it before the problem).

It never occured to you to look at http://absolut.com/ and see who
owns it?

If you mean prior to the problem, why would I?

In order to discover whether you are about to infringe on a trademark.

Post by David
Did you check http://guy.com/ http://macon.com/ http://maco.com/
http://guymac.com/ or any other derivative of your domain are any of
these trademarks, did you check?

Of those, only guy and macon.com would be possible trademark
violations, and yes, I did check them even though they are
common words. If I was registering guymacxx or macoxx I would
have checked guymac and maco to see if they are trademarks.

Post by David
then there's .net, .co.uk, .us, .org etc... tlds.
Where does it end!

It ends with .com and .org. Anyone who is serious enough about
going after the owner of examplexx.com will either already own
example.com or example.org, or will have gone after the owners
of those domains and failed to prevail.

Post by David
If they want to push it, it could be argued http://mac.com/ could own
your domain (pushing it a LOT :-)).

I am not suggesting hours of checking to find obscure trademarks
that are a real push. I am suggesting three minutes checking the
obvious.

Post by David
I didn't know or care to know that Absolut is the Swedish word for
Absolute. I assumed the first owner meant Absolute XXX but couldn't
get it because someone else had it. So I thought it was completely
made up, misspelling at best. Searchers do use "Absolut(e) 'adult
word'" in searches.

Three minutes would have made you aware that absolut is a trademark.

Post by David
I also believed there had to be real confusion, the reality was there
was no confusion on the part of real searches, the domain could not be
found for the trademark Absolut or a derivative. You could only find
it with a search for absolutxxx and that was it, since they don't own
a trademark for absolutxxx I'm still irritated at the decision, but
financially speaking it wasn't worth pursuing.

That is a different issue. I have no problem with you knowing that
absolut is a trademark and deciding that you aren't infringing. That's
your call. I do have a problem with you not knowing that absolut is
a trademark when three minutes of effort would have discovered that it
was. I don't understand why you would prefer being ignorant to putting
in a minimal effort.

Habit.

BB

--
www.kruse.co.uk/ ***@kruse.demon.co.uk
Elvis does my SEO
--

[David]

On Sun, 11 Sep 2005 18:28:33 +0000, Guy Macon

Post by unknown

Post by David
I also believed there had to be real confusion, the reality was there
was no confusion on the part of real searches, the domain could not be
found for the trademark Absolut or a derivative. You could only find
it with a search for absolutxxx and that was it, since they don't own
a trademark for absolutxxx I'm still irritated at the decision, but
financially speaking it wasn't worth pursuing.

That is a different issue. I have no problem with you knowing that
absolut is a trademark and deciding that you aren't infringing. That's
your call. I do have a problem with you not knowing that absolut is
a trademark when three minutes of effort would have discovered that it
was. I don't understand why you would prefer being ignorant to putting
in a minimal effort.

There is a big difference between checking if a domain is used and if
there is a trademark registered, the first is free and easy to do the
second isn't. Also as I said before I had no reason to believe Absolut
was a real word (Swedish anyway), so why would I check for what I
thought was a misspelling?

Whenever I've checked a trademark it's cost money and I only use that
service occasionally after making common sense checks.

Unless of course you know of a free service for checking trademarks?

And even if I did know there is a trademark for Absolut since I'm not
attempting to benefit in anyway due to their reputation etc... (wasn't
trying to trick visitors to the site) there shouldn't have been a
problem. It was because it was a porn site that I lost and that's just
wrong. Absolutxxx does not make you think, "hmm, that's sites going to
be about Vodka/spirits"!

David

[Jerry Stuckle]

Post by David
Whenever I've checked a trademark it's cost money and I only use that
service occasionally after making common sense checks.
Unless of course you know of a free service for checking trademarks?

David,

You can do a free trademark search in the U.S. at www.uspto.gov. Don't
know about other countries, though.

[unknown]

Post by David
There is a big difference between checking if a domain is used and if
there is a trademark registered, the first is free and easy to do the
second isn't.

I only advocated the first in my previous post (any trademark owner who
doesn't bother regsering a doamian and can't be found on Google isn't
likely to come after you), but the second isn't hard to do. See below.

Post by David
Also as I said before I had no reason to believe Absolut was a real
word (Swedish anyway), so why would I check for what I thought was a
misspelling?

In my opinion, you should spend at least a minute or two checking
domain names (or certain subsets of them) that you think are
misspellings. If you had fired up Google and typed in absolutxx,
absolutex, then absolut, the result for absolut would have let you
know that it was a trademark and not a random misspelling.

Post by David
Whenever I've checked a trademark it's cost money and I only use that
service occasionally after making common sense checks.
Unless of course you know of a free service for checking trademarks?

Of course I know of a free service for checking trademarks. I am a
product developer; knowing that for me is like a webmaster knowing
where to find a free validator!


United States Patent and Trademark Office:
http://www.uspto.gov/

USPTO Trademarks section:
http://www.uspto.gov/main/trademarks.htm

USPTO Trademark Electronic Search System (TESS)
http://tess2.uspto.gov/bin/gate.exe?f=tess&state=6gf9jg.1.1

Try searching for absolut. Hint: look at the lowest (oldest)
registration and serial numbers at the bottom first. Also note
the many variations and graphic versions as well as the text
version you are interested in.

Also see:
NOLO Press FAQ on searching for trademarks:
http://www.nolo.com/article.cfm/objectID/79BB0841-5898-40C3-A441E98A7494A853/310/274/FAQ/

Post by David
And even if I did know there is a trademark for Absolut since I'm not
attempting to benefit in anyway due to their reputation etc... (wasn't
trying to trick visitors to the site) there shouldn't have been a
problem. It was because it was a porn site that I lost and that's just
wrong. Absolutxxx does not make you think, "hmm, that's sites going to
be about Vodka/spirits"!

As I said, I have no problem with you knowing that absolute is a trademark
and deciding that your domain doesn't infringe. I have a problem with you
not knowing that absolute is a trademark before registering absolutxx.com.
All I am saying is that a professional webmaster or SEO expert should be
in the habit of doing a quick and dirty trademark search before registering
a domain. I think that's good advice. It should be in various FAQs.

[William Tasso]

Writing in
news:alt.internet.search-engines,alt.www.webmaster,comp.infosystems.www.authoring.html
From the safety of the <a href="http://www.guymacon.com/">
http://www.guymacon.com/ </a> cafeteria
<//www.guymacon.com/>> said:

[groups filtered]

Post by unknown
...
All I am saying is that a
professional webmaster or SEO
expert should be
in the habit of doing a quick
and dirty trademark search
before registering
a domain.

Sounds reminiscent of a "Anna Samuuels" (name fictionalised) who was not
allowed to register her domain because it contains the sequence "nasa".

Post by unknown
I think that's good
advice. It should be in various
FAQs.

possibly - for country specific TLDs.

So far as I know there is no such thing as worldwide trademark.

[WD10]

Post by Charles Sweeney

Post by WD10
It's different. Buying domain names in order to sell them at unfair
prices is more analogous to scalping tickets than to buying shares in
a company.

There's no such thing as an unfair price. If the buyer doesn't like the
price, he can walk away. Naturally if the name is a trademark this
becomes extortion, but it will always fail because all such disputes are
won by the trademark owner.

I disagree -- there IS such thing as an unfair price. What about if
someone is literally starving but you happen to have the only sandwich.
You tell them that if they want the sandwich that it will cost $700.
Is that a fair price? No. It is an attempt to take advantage of someone
else's difficult situation for profit. That is not the right way to make
a living.

That is a more extreme example, but domain names, ticket
scalping, and other dubious ways of making income all fall into that same
category of behavior.

Post by Charles Sweeney
If the business name is a trademark, they won't have a problem. If it's
not, then they don't have any more right to the name than anyone else.

Legally, no. But there is something wrong with going out and trying to
get domain names because you think someone else is going to need it.
There are a lot of people out there who try to beat legitimate businesses
to their own name and then extract money from them. It's an unethical way
to make a living.

Post by Charles Sweeney
The truth is that most people do not make any money, yet they pump
millions into the economy.

So do ticket scalpers, email spammers, viagra peddlers, and drug dealers.
The fact that money is transferred is not a gauge of whether something
is ok to do. There are better ways to make a living than trying to
take advantage of someone else's disadvantageous position. That's why I
don't like the practice of buying and reselling domains for unfair prices.

[GEO]

Post by WD10

Post by WD10
I hate the people that register domains that they have no use for so
that they can sell them at unfair prices.

<snip>

Post by WD10
It's different. Buying domain names in order to sell them at unfair
prices is more analogous to scalping tickets than to buying shares in a
company.

<snip>

Post by WD10
A common scenario goes like this: an honest businessman decides one day that they
are ready to get a web site.
He goes to register his business name as a domain name, but some jerk
has purchased it just hoping that eventually some business owner will
have a legitimate need for that domain name.
* pay the scalper $3,000 or whatever ...<snip>
* buy a less desirable version of the domain name, for example, instead of
www.businessname.com he has to buy www.thebusinessname.com or
www.business-name.com And then when customers look up the business name
they get a spam page that tries to fool people into thinking the visitor
has found what they are looking for so that they will click on PPC ads or
affiliate ads.

<snip>

An example: the Calgary Public Library:
<http://www.calgarypubliclibrary.com/> Instead of using the domain
CA had to use .COM.

Geo

[Charles Sweeney]

Post by GEO
<http://www.calgarypubliclibrary.com/> Instead of using the domain
CA had to use .COM.

He did them a favour, the .com's a much better name!

[Shawn K. Quinn]

begin quotation
from Charles Sweeney <***@charlessweeney.com>
in message <***@130.133.1.4>
posted at 2005-09-11T00:09

Post by Charles Sweeney

Post by GEO
<http://www.calgarypubliclibrary.com/> Instead of using the domain
CA had to use .COM.

He did them a favour, the .com's a much better name!

I beg to differ here. Unless the library is commercial, .com makes no
sense whatsoever.

[Guy Macon]

Post by Charles Sweeney

Post by GEO
<http://www.calgarypubliclibrary.com/>
Instead of using the domain CA had to use .COM.

He did them a favour, the .com's a much better name!

calgarypubliclibrary.ca is just *wrong*. They could have
chosen (and still can choose!) any of the following:

castel.library.calgary.alberta.ca

library.calgary.alberta.ca

library.alberta.ca

publiclibrary.calgary.alberta.ca

publiclibrary.alberta.ca

[GEO]

On Sun, 11 Sep 2005 01:34:03 +0000, Guy Macon

Post by Guy Macon

Post by Charles Sweeney

Post by GEO
<http://www.calgarypubliclibrary.com/>
Instead of using the domain CA had to use .COM.

He did them a favour, the .com's a much better name!

calgarypubliclibrary.ca is just *wrong*. They could have
castel.library.calgary.alberta.ca
library.calgary.alberta.ca
library.alberta.ca
publiclibrary.calgary.alberta.ca
publiclibrary.alberta.ca

You are probably right that they could have chosen one of the other
available names, but considering everything else around their site it
seems that there was nobody competent in charge. They bought a portal
from a commercial company, and they are still trying to make it work.
It took them around six months to get the 'Help' link to work.

There were some interesting replies to my question in a thread
called 'Standards'.
<http://www.highdots.com/forums/html/standards-580653.html>

Geo

[Dan]

Post by Charles Sweeney

Post by GEO
<http://www.calgarypubliclibrary.com/> Instead of using the domain
CA had to use .COM.

He did them a favour, the .com's a much better name!

When did the Calgary Public Library become a commercial enterprise?

If .ca is unavailable, .org or .info would be a better fit.

[Charles Sweeney]

Post by Dan

Post by Charles Sweeney

Post by GEO
<http://www.calgarypubliclibrary.com/> Instead of using the domain
CA had to use .COM.

He did them a favour, the .com's a much better name!

When did the Calgary Public Library become a commercial enterprise?
If .ca is unavailable, .org or .info would be a better fit.

Please point me to the rule that states only commercial enterprises can
register a .com name.

You say .ca would be best, that's used for commercial enterprises.
Please try to be consistent.

[Dave Anderson]

Post by Charles Sweeney
Please point me to the rule that states only commercial enterprises can
register a .com name.

<ftp://ftp.rfc-editor.org/in-notes/rfc1591.txt>

Of course, that was written back before all the stereotypical-MBAs got
their hands on things and screwed them up for their own benefit.

Dave

[WD10]

Post by GEO

Post by WD10
A common scenario goes like this: an honest businessman decides one day that they
are ready to get a web site.
He goes to register his business name as a domain name, but some jerk
has purchased it just hoping that eventually some business owner will
have a legitimate need for that domain name.
* pay the scalper $3,000 or whatever ...<snip>
* buy a less desirable version of the domain name, for example, instead of
www.businessname.com he has to buy www.thebusinessname.com or
www.business-name.com And then when customers look up the business name
they get a spam page that tries to fool people into thinking the visitor
has found what they are looking for so that they will click on PPC ads or
affiliate ads.

<snip>
<http://www.calgarypubliclibrary.com/> Instead of using the domain
CA had to use .COM.
Geo

That is exactly what I am talking about. Go to
www. calgarypubliclibrary .ca [I added spaces] and look at that Internet
spam. Someone went out of their way to hold that domain name hostage in
order to sell it at an unfair price... in this case to waste taxpayers'
money.

[T Wake]

Post by WD10
That is exactly what I am talking about. Go to
www. calgarypubliclibrary .ca [I added spaces] and look at that Internet
spam. Someone went out of their way to hold that domain name hostage in
order to sell it at an unfair price... in this case to waste taxpayers'
money.

Pretty good example of unethical behaviour. As someone who didn't know any
better it was very easy (for me) to assume that the .ca site was the
"correct" website for the public library. The popular links on the left seem
to be designed to mislead as well.

[Charles Sweeney]

Post by Jim Moe

Post by Bush is a Fascist
However when I email the owners, they never ever respond.
Even if it says to inquire about buying at some email,
it's useless because they never respond.
Why is that? Are they selling domains on Ebay or something?

For a while speculators were registering domains that they guessed
would be popular with the hope that people would be stupid enough to
pay a large amount to acquire. I have only heard of one instance where
such a scam worked.

How is this a scam? (Notwithstanding obvious Trademark issues, which I
suspect you were not referring to).

Post by Jim Moe
Probably the person(s) who registered the domains have starved to death
waiting for the stampede to their doors.

Fair chance of that I would say.

[Jim Moe]

Post by Charles Sweeney

Post by Jim Moe
For a while speculators were registering domains that they guessed
would be popular with the hope that people would be stupid enough to
pay a large amount to acquire. I have only heard of one instance where
such a scam worked.

How is this a scam? (Notwithstanding obvious Trademark issues, which I
suspect you were not referring to).

It is no different from concert ticket scalping, or submarine patents.
The sole purpose is to gouge money from buyers (aka: sociopathic capitalism).

[WD10]

Post by Jim Moe

Post by Charles Sweeney

Post by Jim Moe
For a while speculators were registering domains that they guessed
would be popular with the hope that people would be stupid enough to
pay a large amount to acquire. I have only heard of one instance where
such a scam worked.

How is this a scam? (Notwithstanding obvious Trademark issues, which I
suspect you were not referring to).

It is no different from concert ticket scalping, or submarine patents.
The sole purpose is to gouge money from buyers (aka: sociopathic capitalism).

EXACTLY! I'm glad someone agrees.

[Mike Redrobe]

Post by Bush is a Fascist
Lately I've been shopping for a domain, and I have been
encountering, like most people have no doubt, that many
domains are owned by people who aren't using them,
although they might have a page full of links.
Often there is some note saying that the domain is "for sale".
However when I email the owners, they never ever respond.
Even if it says to inquire about buying at some email,
it's useless because they never respond.

Maybe you are offering too low a price?

If you are offering $50 for a single word domain, then you
won't get a response....

...and yes, people are hopeful enough to offer silly low
amounts.

--
Mike

[Charles Sweeney]

Post by Bush is a Fascist
Hi folks,
Lately I've been shopping for a domain, and I have been
encountering, like most people have no doubt, that many
domains are owned by people who aren't using them,
although they might have a page full of links.
Often there is some note saying that the domain is "for sale".
However when I email the owners, they never ever respond.
Even if it says to inquire about buying at some email,
it's useless because they never respond.
Why is that? Are they selling domains on Ebay or something?
Thanks for any clues.

Who knows. I have encountered the same thing with names that are not
(apparently) being used. I even wrote a proper letter to a registrant
once, asking if the name was for sale. Didn't get a reply.

I'm surprised that for a name which is advertised for sale, you don't
get a reply. Have you tried emailing the whois contact?

[saz]

Post by Bush is a Fascist
Hi folks,
Lately I've been shopping for a domain, and I have been
encountering, like most people have no doubt, that many
domains are owned by people who aren't using them,
although they might have a page full of links.
Often there is some note saying that the domain is "for sale".
However when I email the owners, they never ever respond.
Even if it says to inquire about buying at some email,
it's useless because they never respond.
Why is that? Are they selling domains on Ebay or something?
Thanks for any clues.

I have 8 domains for sale, and daily I get an email requesting a price.
I send my asking price, then they ask if it's negotiable, I respond yes
and I never hear from them again.

Lately, I've been ignoring those emails unless they have an amount in
them.

My advice - make a solid, FAIR offer and that might help with a
response.