Microsoft showed its human side on Tuesday when the company admitted to overreacting by allowing its lawyers to threaten Mike Rowe over his MikeRoweSoft.com Web site. However, the company is unlikely to be so kind to another Mike, also from Canada, who is embroiled in a similar trademark battle with the software giant over his domain.
Mike Morris, who has been using the mikerosoft.ca domain for two years to front his non-commercial Web site, received a letter from Microsoft's Canadian lawyers, Smart & Biggar, in early January. He too was asked to transfer his domain to Microsoft, who offered to reimburse his registration fee and domain-transfer costs (after originally demanding that Morris bear these costs himself).
Microsoft now faces a quandary: if it decides to take the hard line with Morris, it is likely to generate even more negative publicity of the sort which, observers say, is the reason it changed its mind over Mike Rowe in the first place.
However, Microsoft's nightmare could be cut short because, unlike Rowe, Morris has already changed his domain name and moved his site in anticipation of being evicted.
"I run a not-for-profit Web site based on my own name that does not reference Microsoft Corporation in any way," says Morris on his site, which contains updates of graphics-card drivers, a blog with information about his legal problems, and a disclaimer stating that the site is not owned by, endorsed by, or affiliated in any way with Microsoft.
Morris said he does not want to sell the domain and does not want to profit from the site. Instead, he is hoping Microsoft will let him keep the site if he displays a disclaimer written by the company's lawyers. "I can let Microsoft write a disclaimer, or even sign an agreement saying I will not profit from the name and I won't turn it into a porn site," he said.
Morris admitted that the legal threat has resulted in far more visitors to his site than the domain name or the content he posted ever did: "The sad truth is that while my site got a fair bit of traffic when I had new drivers hosted, it was nothing compared to what it is getting now," he said.
Microsoft was not available for comment.
Talkback
Microsoft OWNS YOU!!!
You're next.
mycrowssoft.com available!
There was a similar case in the early 20th century involving Coca Cola and a competitor known as Koka Kola. The decision was that Koka Kola, with its similar name and packaging, was intentionally trying to confuse Coca Cola's customers.
In this case, Mike Rowe is simply making an amusing statement with the website name. No one is seriously going to e-mail Mr. Rowe asking him how to purchase FrontPage online. No one in his right mind is going to confuse Mike's site with Bill's.
Microsoft does not have the domain name. Mike Rowe does. If Microsoft can get away with bullying someone with their website, than I will stop using the internet.
microsoft.com and mikerowe.soft.com are two different domain names DUH!
I think Microsoft has been on top far too long, it has come to a point where they believe that they own the English language. You can't own the phonetic sound of your name.
Got Penguin?
Linux...it's not your everyday bully!
What about mikerowesoft.co.uk in support of Mike Rowe?
I wish we had Microsofts money! We bought several variations of our domain name having been Cybersquatted two years ago. Although it is illegal in other countries we had to buy our way out here.The squatter was in the same business and directed the .com version of our name to his site. It cost us a lot of money we could ill afford.
Now, thanks to the dilligence of a customer who found himself in the wrong site, we find another competitor has Typosquatted our name and has the .co.uk/.net/.com versions all pointed to his site.
How many more versions fo our domain name need we buy and when is there going to be some legislation in the UK?
Microsoft seems intent upon generating bad publicity for itself almost in contermpt of attempts to curb its power. The universally accepted product and its attachment have an enormous benefit to business but the cost is mounting.
I really would advise the Microsoft Gurus to rein in their greedy lawyers and spend some of the money they save on trying to generate some good, positive PR. they are going to need it!
Why not Macro Soft?
Bill Gates needs your $$$$
Bill Gates AKA Lex Luthor
Decriminalize The Supreme Court
And all the rest are here on Gilligan's Isle
Pees healps me. I am twrying to get new windowes updates but when i go to windowsupdate.mikerowesoft.com it do not wet me update. What souwd i dwo?
Mike Rowe should setup a sub-domain 'windowsupdate' with instructions how to fdisk windows away and put on Linux or BSD, now thats an update!!!
Mike Rowe is nothing but an internet squatter. He (being in the IT field) knew full well, why and what he was doing by putting soft in his domain name. He would never able to validate his use of "soft" in his domain name as he is not producing any software.
This story with Microsoft is exactly what he wanted to happen and is nothing more than a punk trying to make a buck. He even has the nerve to be accepting donations through paypal for his legal fund. Please give me a break. He should be sued up to the ying yang or change his domain name to mikero.com or .ca.
That plain and simple is why he came up with the mikerosoft name.
Feel sorry for him, not a chance. Feel sorry for Bill Gates not a chance.
If Mike Rowe was awarded the OBE, what would that make him?
MicroSoft needs to lighten up.. They make thousands of dollars a minute, so what's their problem.... Theyre just greedy with the £££/$$$..... Makes me sick...
It seems like the world is now taking the "Michael" out of Microsoft after years of them doing it to a world forced to feed their greed with their inferior operating systems. It would seem strange to me that Microsoft are applying an American Law outside the USA. I thought that laws such as this varied from country to country as trademarks are not (as far as I am aware) not legally bound items in the same way as copyright items where the person or organisation has paid money to protect their interests. So if I decided to set up a company called "Small Software" I would (following Microsoft’s current logic) be subject to legal action from them as "their customers might be confused" by the similarity in the names (micro = small, soft = software). If the two Mikes were doing the same as Microsoft (i.e. selling inferior software which by the time they fix most of the problems they no longer support and you have to buy the new software which is worse than the old one etc etc) Is it not time that Microsoft and the American Legal system which promotes this kind of action come up to date with the rest of the world and start to use a bit of common sense, or is that too much to hope for.
Oh dear God. The loss of a company's USP (Unique Selling Point) isn't the end of the world. Just look at Hoover; it's a company. But it's been generalised and here in the UK especially, we call them hoovers, rather than vacuum cleaners.
How about cling film? That was a brand, now generalised. Coke, also a brand thanks to Coca Cola and now generalised.
Microsoft? Well, we all get the evil word shoved down our throats constantly and it's had the adverse effect; it seems to have consumed EVERYTHING and now, EVERYTHING is a threat to them. Oh no. No other software company can end it's name with 'soft' incase it sounds similar to Microsoft.
This from the guy who wanted to claim Windows as his trademark? WTF? Windows? Windows were being built into houses way before Mister Bill was even born.
Pathetic. Old news. Tomorros chip paper. Boring. Install Linux. microsft = deaaattth. EVIL.
I guess MS would like to claim the rights
to all of our names so as to prevent our
names from messing with their monopoly.
Get the hell out of the way MS, you are
slowing up the march of real software
progress. Take your $35B cash and retire
while you still have it.
bill gates is a comedian retarded drop out
i mean he just needs popularity and advertisings until he comes up with a newer version of the Windows.
what difference does it make to microsoft with this kids website ... don't we all know what microsoft is already?
Mike Rowe
Is No
MikeRoweSofty
T-Shirt at:
http://www.zazzle.com/products/gallery/browse_results.asp?general%5Fcategory%5Fid=103053432258371047