Google shoves cybersquatter off 763 Googletastic domains Google has seized over 750 domain names from a cybersquatter who used them to drive traffic to a series of "gay interest" websites and now wants Google's trademark cancelled. The company has won a complaint covering 763 domains that all included the word "google" followed by the name of another company, keyword or celebrity, …
Oooohhh that is an intersting one. Spam no longer specifically refers to Hormel's pink stuff, hoover is used interchangeably with vacuum cleaner, etc.
Yes, clearly looks like the guy was squatting in poor faith, but it'll be inetresting who can be the first person to make it stick that 'to google' is a generic term :-|
Despite common mis-perception "Spam" and "spam" is not a Hormel trademark.
"SPAM" all upper case is the trademark.
Unlike some other big corporates Hormel are kind enough to understand their own chosen trademark and extend leeway to persons in the anti-spam area who are careful to use the non-trademark variants correctly and without profiting from the term.
They *do* actively enforce the trademark however. Try to label everything in CAPS and you are violating their trademark. Do so while operating a money-making operation and can expect to receive a legal complaint.
"Go Ogle" is a generic term (go and stare at). So, for example Go Ogle Donkey Sex is generic and should be OK. The domain name does not have to have '.' between words so therefore googledonkeysex.com should be allowed - and does not infringe Google. Google should have thought more about the word 'google' and that it is a concatenation of 2 valid english words in a valid usage.
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