General Discussions

**kt reed** · 02-21-2005, 08:46 PM

I’d like to get some outside opinions here from everyone. I’ve just
received the following email from The Go Daddy Group. It’s regarding my having a website with the address go-daddy-go.com. Please read…
It has come to our attention that a domain name you have registered is infringing upon one or more of GoDaddy.com's trademarks.

You may not have known that GoDaddy.com is a registered trademark of Go Daddy Software, Inc. We are writing as a courtesy to inform you that your use of the term "Go Daddy" in your domain name or a domain name that is substantially the same or confusingly similar to the "Go Daddy" mark is likely to cause confusion in the marketplace and would therefore likely be construed as a violation of the GoDaddy.com trademark.

As a result, we would like to refund you for your purchase of this domain and move the domain into our account.

Please be so kind as to initiate a change of account to this email address within 10 days. If you have any questions on this process, please contact me by replying to this email.

Thank you,
Pam Holland
Domain Services

Fact is, I registered the domain name go-daddy-go.com and they didn’t. I’m very surprised that Bob Parsons didn’t do a little better in their due dilligence, making sure that every conceivable combination of fill-in-the-blank-daddy.com
was registered to them, and pointed at their primary domain address.

What is so ironic here is that I REGISTERED THIS NAME THROUGH THEM!
Therefore, their acceptance of my request and my money told me it was OK.

I registered the name the day before the superbowl just as a little test to see if there would be any misdirected souls. I didn’t purchase keywords, and the “little ol one pager ten minutes and it’s done” site didn’t get crawled by any search engines, and thus, didn’t come up in anyone’s results.

What are your opinions? Should I give up the name and get my $7 refunded,
Or should I hold out strictly on principals, based on my first amendment rights. Any PR angles I could get out of this? (i.e David vs Goliath) etc?

PS- Ironically, I also have a super-reseller account, and two reseller accounts with Daddy-O, not to mention a half dozen hosting accounts!

**guitrmn** · 02-21-2005, 09:29 PM

If you could clarify what you mean when you say your first amendment rights? IMO, it has nothing to do with the registration of a domain name, especially when it's a trademark.

Now, even IF the first amendment was applicable here, it's still not going to stop you from being put into a legal battle. Which, in my experience is long and expensive.

To some of your points:

Quote:

I’m very surprised that Bob Parsons didn’t do a little better in their due dilligence, making sure that every conceivable combination of fill-in-the-blank-daddy.com

They don't have to. It's a trademark.

Quote:

What is so ironic here is that I REGISTERED THIS NAME THROUGH THEM! Therefore, their acceptance of my request and my money told me it was OK.

If you have accounts with them (or been on the Internet for any period of time) know that this is an automated process. The fact that it was paid for, even through their process, does not make it legal to squat on a domain.

Quote:

I registered the name the day before the superbowl just as a little test to see if there would be any misdirected souls.

Quote:

Or should I hold out strictly on principals

I'd take the refund and run.

**ParasHaria** · 02-22-2005, 03:11 AM

guitrmn - i completely agree with guitrmn in this case - you are treading on a matter which you are extremely unlikely to come out of sucessfully.

Anyone buying names with the "tag" go-daddy" in it is likely to be challenged - it is the same issue with the "easy" brand here in the UK. Rather than being dragged through the courts and having to pay out expenses you might as well take the refund!!

**Minaki** · 04:29 AM

If you had good reason to have that domain you might actually have a case. Like, if yu owned a company called go-daddy-go or that was your slogan or something. The fact that you registered that domain for no real reason isn't going to get you any points!

Another vote for Take the Refund.

**webspace** · 10:36 AM

I'd fight them.

Satire is protected speech under the first amendment. See Fox News vs Al Franken.

With the domain name and the same type of business you will either be able to call it satire or you will end up loosing. It looks like a fair and balance joke to me.

There are plenty of site names with Google or ebay in them. They'd have to prove you bought the domain with the intent of typo squatting on there site, and with the hyphens and the two extra letters, I don't think that is going to happen. You'd really have to be a bad typist. You'd have to punch in five wrong keys in a total of 7 keystrokes with 3 extra keystrokes to boot. If it were an anagram of godaddy like ogdaddy or a missspelling of godaddy like fodaddy.

I used to live in Astoria, Oregon. There's a little coffee shop there called Sambuck's coffee.
The lady who owns the place is named Samantha Buck or something like that. When Starbucks came to town and set up shop in the local Fred Meyer they told her that she was infringing on there trademark. It's my name. Pretty good defense. They offered her some money for the name Sambuck's but she didn't sell.

Further more you invented the domain name "go-daddy-go" that makes it your intellectual property. If godaddy didn't register it, that's there fualt.

Further more, if you were getting intimate with your woman, and you said "who's ur daddy?" and she said, you are "daddy go-daddy-go", yeah it's al ittle far fetched. That's cognitive disonence for you.

You should sell the domain back to them but not for $7.

Quote:

Originally Posted by kt reed

I’d like to get some outside opinions here from everyone. I’ve just
received the following email from The Go Daddy Group. It’s regarding my having a website with the address go-daddy-go.com. Please read…
It has come to our attention that a domain name you have registered is infringing upon one or more of GoDaddy.com's trademarks.

You may not have known that GoDaddy.com is a registered trademark of Go Daddy Software, Inc. We are writing as a courtesy to inform you that your use of the term "Go Daddy" in your domain name or a domain name that is substantially the same or confusingly similar to the "Go Daddy" mark is likely to cause confusion in the marketplace and would therefore likely be construed as a violation of the GoDaddy.com trademark.

As a result, we would like to refund you for your purchase of this domain and move the domain into our account.

Please be so kind as to initiate a change of account to this email address within 10 days. If you have any questions on this process, please contact me by replying to this email.

Thank you,
Pam Holland
Domain Services

Fact is, I registered the domain name go-daddy-go.com and they didn’t. I’m very surprised that Bob Parsons didn’t do a little better in their due dilligence, making sure that every conceivable combination of fill-in-the-blank-daddy.com
was registered to them, and pointed at their primary domain address.

What is so ironic here is that I REGISTERED THIS NAME THROUGH THEM!
Therefore, their acceptance of my request and my money told me it was OK.

I registered the name the day before the superbowl just as a little test to see if there would be any misdirected souls. I didn’t purchase keywords, and the “little ol one pager ten minutes and it’s done” site didn’t get crawled by any search engines, and thus, didn’t come up in anyone’s results.

What are your opinions? Should I give up the name and get my $7 refunded,
Or should I hold out strictly on principals, based on my first amendment rights. Any PR angles I could get out of this? (i.e David vs Goliath) etc?

PS- Ironically, I also have a super-reseller account, and two reseller accounts with Daddy-O, not to mention a half dozen hosting accounts!

**CasaPages** · 02-22-2005, 12:08 PM

I agree with websence however;

The question you must ask yourself is this, do you want to take on somone that has plenty of resources on their hands like money lawyers etc. etc.

If ya do more power to ya, otherwise Id just take the refund and run. Since you didnt plan on using the site anyways why bother.

To the ones that are clearly not from the USA, here a lawyer (provided you can afford this kind) can make anything mean anything. In this case a lawyer could turn it around into go-daddy flexing its "big business muscles" and violating every single constitutional right (they will find some language) and perhapes even casuing personal harm and mental anguish to the victim (happens all the time). This is why I dislike lawyers.

and thats my multiple cents

**webspace** · 01:21 PM

I think that Godaddy suing go-daddy-go is pretty rediculous.

If they sue you and the judgement isn't in your favor that would suck.

But if they sued you and the judgement was in your favor it would be newsworthy to say the least.

Quote:

Originally Posted by CasaPages

I agree with websence however;

The question you must ask yourself is this, do you want to take on somone that has plenty of resources on their hands like money lawyers etc. etc.

If ya do more power to ya, otherwise Id just take the refund and run. Since you didnt plan on using the site anyways why bother.

To the ones that are clearly not from the USA, here a lawyer (provided you can afford this kind) can make anything mean anything. In this case a lawyer could turn it around into go-daddy flexing its "big business muscles" and violating every single constitutional right (they will find some language) and perhapes even casuing personal harm and mental anguish to the victim (happens all the time). This is why I dislike lawyers.

and thats my multiple cents

**CasaPages** · 02-22-2005, 01:09 PM

yes and how much effort you want to put into it. Im sure you could find some lawyer or group of lawyers to back you up for a limited cost. Im also willing to bet that GoDaddy.com would possibly settle out of court to not drag itself into a battle of David Vs. Goliath since that wouldnt be very good PR

**The Jasong** · 02-22-2005, 02:28 PM

Just remember, Go Daddy has millions and millions of excess dollars to do what they wish.
Hiring a team of lawyers to crush you is nothing to them, and everything to you.
I wouldnt take a bite of this cake, and just sell it back to them.
If anything, do not try to sell it back for more than $7.

**CasaPages** · 02-22-2005, 02:38 PM

Hey maybe this guy has million of millions of dollars, or perhapes his wife is some bgi wig law firm partner or **** maybe he is....who knows....

Personnally I wouldnt bother picking a fight with them then again I wouldnt make a site called go-daddy-go

(isnt go-daddy-go part of the lyrics in a song from the 50s or somethin)

**webspace** · 02-22-2005, 06:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by The Jasong

Just remember, Go Daddy has millions and millions of excess dollars to do what they wish.
Hiring a team of lawyers to crush you is nothing to them, and everything to you.
I wouldnt take a bite of this cake, and just sell it back to them.
If anything, do not try to sell it back for more than $7.

It doesn't matter how much money a person has. You can represent yourself in court, now that would be news story ""Go-Daddy-Go say's "Who's you Daddy?" to GoDaddy".

I would tell them they have to take it two trial. I bet they will drop the case and make you a respectable offer on the domain.

Tell them about sambuck's coffee and the negative PR suing you will get for the company.

Tell them that suing you is only going to draw attention to the domain/business at Go-Daddy-Go making making more business for you.

**kt reed** · 02-22-2005, 06:46 PM

great discussion going here folks, thanks for the input! No, I'm not a kazillionaire! I'm still not sure what I'm going tp do with this. I found out it takes 6 months for a decision if I'm challenged thru ICANN, and in the meantime your site is still up. Thru another chat board I found out I'm just a small fish...seems there is a guy who has 3 domains being challenged by godaddy, and he's recieved over 2.8million page views thus far. Additionally, he has had offers from a dozen attornies who would work pro bono on the case.
One site is a satire of goddady's satire of the janet jackson thing, the other is a "fan site" for Candice Michelle, the actress who played Nikki Cavelli in the tv ad. Bottom line, missgodaddy.com and msgodaddy.com have already turned down $25k for their domains---Howard Stern coined the term "Miss Go Daddy" when she appeared on his show.

kt

webspace-I like your posts, I can't respond in private, I don't have the 5 post minimum, and its been years since I've heard someone use the term "cognitive dissonance"....(buyers remorse)!!

**guitrmn** · 02-22-2005, 07:02 PM

One way for an infringement case to be settled quicker is by proof of intent.

Quote:

I registered the name the day before the superbowl just as a little test to see if there would be any misdirected souls.

Sounds like intent to me...

**webspace** · 02-23-2005, 03:30 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kt reed

great discussion going here folks, thanks for the input! No, I'm not a kazillionaire! I'm still not sure what I'm going tp do with this.

Quote:

I found out it takes 6 months for a decision if I'm challenged thru ICANN, and in the meantime your site is still up.

If you plan to keep the domain it might be in your best interest to transfer the domain to another registratar, This way there is less likely to be administrative errors "administrative errors" when it comes time to renew your domain. And deffinity renew early, don't wait for it to auto renew.

I just lost a domain because of that and it was one that got alot free traffic, I could have kicked myself for that one.

Quote:

Thru another chat board I found out I'm just a small fish...seems there is a guy who has 3 domains being challenged by godaddy, and he's recieved over 2.8million page views thus far. Additionally, he has had offers from a dozen attornies who would work pro bono on the case.
One site is a satire of goddady's satire of the janet jackson thing, the other is a "fan site" for Candice Michelle, the actress who played Nikki Cavelli in the tv ad. Bottom line, missgodaddy.com and msgodaddy.com have already turned down $25k for their domains---Howard Stern coined the term "Miss Go Daddy" when she appeared on his show.

kt

I'm would take the $25k and register a bunch more domains.

Quote:

webspace-I like your posts, I can't respond in private, I don't have the 5 post minimum, and its been years since I've heard someone use the term "cognitive dissonance"....(buyers remorse)!!

Fesenger's theory of cognititve dissonance (Also called the theory of '57 if I'm not mistaken) describes how people's morality and sense of morality changes to cope with the transgressions they may have made against that sense of morality. I read part of the book "Cognitive Dissonance" but I didn't get through it. The book is about the new theory of cognitive disonance. I didn't finish the book so my understanding of the subject is limited.

Well at any rate you should post an introduction in the new member's introduction forum. That will get you one post closer, it's also a good idea to introduce yourself so people can get some idea of who you are.

And welcome Webmaster-talk

**The Jasong** · 02-23-2005, 12:37 PM

Quote:

(isnt go-daddy-go part of the lyrics in a song from the 50s or somethin)

That's Go-Johnny-Go. I was thinking the same thing too though