FC: Ford sues 2600 Magazine over fuckgeneralmotors.com

From: Declan McCullagh (declanat_private)
Date: Tue Apr 24 2001 - 11:49:14 PDT

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    See 2600's battle with Verizon over verizonreallysucks.com:
    http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,36210,00.html
    
    -Declan
    
    ******
    
    http://www.cluebot.com/article.pl?sid=01/04/24/162223&mode=thread                                      
       Ford v. 2600
       posted by vergil on Tuesday April 24, @10:05AM
    
       2600 Enterprises, ever willing to test the legal boundaries of
       cyberspace, has earned yet another lawsuit - this time from the Ford
       Motor Corporation. A Nando Times article reveals that the Blue Oval
       has recently filed a trademark infringement suit against 2600
       concerning a domain name that contains the name of competitor General
       Motors, an obscenity and redirects to Ford's front page. "According to
       the suit, which seeks unspecified damages, an Internet user searching
       for a strident, vulgar criticism of GM might type in or stumble upon
       the questioned domain name, then be 'catapulted' to Ford's official
       Web site."
    
       This is the latest chapter of an ongoing feud between Detroit
       automakers and the Middle Island, New York based publisher of the
       hacker quarterly.
       
       On October 11, 2000, 2600 received a trademark infringement letter
       from a General Motors attorney over 2600's registration of
       "fuckgeneralmotors.com". A subsequent article appearing in 2600's news
       archive characterized GM's initial legal threat as "an issue of speech
       and we need to send a message that free speech is something we just
       cannot back down on." Interestingly, the 2600 writeup offered to put
       the offending domain name to good use by donating it to a website
       featuring legitimate criticism of General Motors. "If you have such a
       site or plan on setting one up ... we'll arrange to have
       fuckgeneralmotors.com point to it. The same holds true for any of the
       other corporations that we have 'critical' domains for." Guess nobody
       took them up on their offer.
    
       ###
    
    
    
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