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back to article Google succumbs to German cybersquatter's advances (maybe)

Google may have reached an agreement with the German network administrator who tried to strong-arm the company into giving him a job. Or maybe not. Earlier this week, the Mountain View-obsessed online rag Google Blogoscoped reported that 27-year-old Sebastian Klein was using some good old-fashioned cyber-squatting in his …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Up

    Is it that much for him to ask

    Maybe he gave up but I don't think any less of him for trying. I wouldn't have asked for a job though, I would have settled for lump-sum there should be no dishonor in selling someone something for a high price if they intend to make huge amounts of money with it.

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  2. Eddy
    Heart

    You know what?...

    I kinda hope they spoke to him and hired him on the basis that he was actually pretty smart, if a little unconventional in his approach.

    Unconventional approaches to IT in the modern world are often overlooked or dismissed as too wierd. If they saw through that and gave him a shot, then hired him on his own merits, well that's no bad thing.

    Maybe time will tell & we'll find out.

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  3. Steve Roper

    Trademark cybersquatting

    No, because those domains contain the word "Google" - which is a registered trademark. All Google would have had to do is point this out to the domain registrar, who would then have simply redirected the domains and removed them from the control of the cybersquatter - rather than engage in a costly court case it knew it would be certain to lose on those grounds.

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  4. Anonymous Coward
    Dead Vulture

    Good luck Mr German Man sir

    I have applied for a job at Google a few times already. Turned down all the time. No matter how good you are, they wouldn't take notice in you unless they think you're good.

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  5. John
    Coat

    Trademark? I don't think so

    It's been tried and lost with names such as "windowssucks" and "microsoftsucks." Try this:

    www.appleSUCKS.COM

    Notes to self, a good list of sites to add to my block list.

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  6. David S
    Coat

    Weekly commute between Europe and USA?

    Hmm. If they gave him a job, I hope for the sake of the 'virumint it was Cologne-based. Also, for the sake of his relationship with his daughter.

    Ooh, I know! Give him a T-shirt and make him a VP responsible for brand awareness...

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  7. amanfromMars Silver badge

    Bitte Schoen

    Being so good that it is possibly evil or at least, capable of being positively evil, is a key, I imagine too, AC. As is a crazy Imagination under Control. Uncle Sam could certainly use IT presently in the throes of its internetional distress/Storm warning.

    The American Dream does appear to have run out of ammo and got stuck in a parasitic, dog eat dog rut. That leaves them vulnerable to any other sovereign state /fund owner into Quantum and ITs Nanotechnology effects on Global GeoSpatial Awareness. ....... Markets Domination.

    Very Sorosy Sorcery.

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  8. Anonymous Coward
    Coat

    About unorthodox approaches...

    ... Google does get interested in unorthodox approaches. That's what makes them tick. They want people who think outside the box, and that's what this kid has done. Not that I agree with the approach, but I guess that works.

    If he's employed in a local data centre, he won't have to FLY home to Cologne, he can take the train like everyone else. :-)

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  9. Anonymous Coward
    Stop

    If I were google...

    I would never give the guy a job.

    This is blackmailing... I would not trust an employee with this kind of practices to start with.

    Some friends of mine, tried to get a jobs at Google in different offices. I would say that the recruitment process was unorthodox and unpleasant for them.

    One of the two refused to go farther at some point of the interview process, as he demanded a software architect position, and all he was offered was a (possibly monkey) coder job. This guy currently works for IBM as a consultant. He came to them with a quite advanced qualification in security and distributed systems, and two masters from two top of the list universities, resp. in Germany and in England.

    The other one did not make it trough, but then, he is a robotics and decision system engineer, so he was a bit off. He now works as a light client engineer and is one of the most serious engineer I know of.

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  10. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Down

    What an idiot!

    Being in Cologne might be the best place in the world to do cyversquatting. A local German radio station stole domains all over the world by help of the cologne court like one of Swiss bank UBS. See www.dl2mcd.de/domaine.html .

    Also google was blackmailed already in Germany for being forbidden to use gmail.com

    But does the guy really think this is a way to make himself popular at google?

    If so, I will call tomorrow

    "I planted a bomb in the Google swimmingpool at HQ. Give me a job or it will go off!"

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