AOL Threat
Friday, July 14, 2006
AOL attorney sends a letter to the registrar of the domain name www.aol-icq.net inviting them to turn it over.
When the original Jane Doe holder of the aol-icq.net registration was asked how she felt after 4 years of being the registered owner of aol-icq.net to now be served with a strongly worded letter demanding she transfer the name to AOL she responded with "It's about time."
AOL is not unfamiliar with sending letters and suing for trademark infringement as any Google search would reveal but what seems to be most interesting is that in this case, Jane Doe had been the domain holder to aol-icq.net since August 23, 2002 according to records.
Prior to this, her domain holding was aol-icq.com when an accidental lapse in registration allowed it to become available for AOL's acquisition. She remember's her surprise at AOL's registering it so quickly.
"I had read that by that point, they had bought Mirabilis' ICQ, but I had no idea they had been watching the name."
The record reveals that AOL had indeed purchased the aol-icq.com August 16, 2002 and because it had belonged to Ms. Doe first, she did not feel odd in registering the aol-icq.net version. "I wanted to kick myself for allowing the dot com to lapse but irrespective of the type of domain name, I had registered it first, years prior."
What Doe had always intended for the domain name, which was to publicize to AOL customers that it was possible to use the popular ICQ client while on AOL, regardless of AOL's own advice that it was anything from not possible to not supported, gradually changed. Due to additional issues Doe had with AOL's deletion of her AOL member pages and disappearing posts showing customers how they could do it, the intent changed to an open critique of AOL's poor customer service, their inclination to censor material or posts they disagree with, and poor customer relations.
Updated January 17 2007
Since this "AOL Threat" article first appeared July 14, 2006 it's since been discovered that AOL seems to use these tactics quite frequently. Many domain holders with the letters A O L in their domain names have complained or worried about AOL's attorney's letters. Kudos to the sites who stayed and fought. Kudos to the ones who didn't buckle.
If you happen upon this article and are one of the one's currently being targetted I would suggest the following links:
- http://www.eff.org/news/archives/2006_08.php - August 24, 2006 -Barney Parody
Regarding the above link: "The misuse of intimidating cease-and-desist letters for censorship is a growing problem online," said EFF Staff Attorney Corynne McSherry. "We hope this lawsuit sends a message to Barney's owners and other corporations to think twice before sending baseless threat letters."
Permanent Link to this Article ||
.
The First Post
Tuesday, July 11, 2006
Permanent Link to this Article ||
.
New!
July 13 2006
This site and blog are not necessarily against AOL. It's a critique of some of the methods AOL uses or some may say abuses toward it's customers and/or the internet at large.
Visiting Dear AOL, for example, will reveal a petition that some are signing in order to stop AOL from sending allowed spam to your AOL email-box.
Are you being threatened with trademark infringement? Have you been ordered to transfer your domain name over? Here are some resources:
Electronic Frontier Foundation
Chilling Effects Clearinghouse
About This Blog
This blog was formed after AOL™ or America Online ™ - an online service provider - sent a threatening notice to the Registrar of the domain name www.aol-icq.net telling them to transfer it to AOL. The notice made assertions of copyright infringement of the name and even went so far as to assert their ownership of the once non-AOL controlled name ICQ™. At first blush, this may seem not so unreasonable. However. The former owner of www.aol-icq.com, acquired circa 1998 for the purpose of helping AOL members use ICQ while on AOL, is the same owner of www.aol-icq.net, which was acquired in 2002 when an accidental missing of the deadline left it open for AOL to register it.
Therefore, does this latest AOL threat sound like Reverse Domain Name Hijacking?
