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Story: Microsoft: We took MikeRoweSoft too seriously

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Please, take these points seriously.

1) Mike is just a kid. At his age the internet is his playground. He can register a domain name knowing that in a few years it will just disappear into the ether and if another company wants to pick it up, it can. If anyone is at fault it is the domain registation company.

2) Mike is Canadian. How could he know anything about an obscure American law that would require a company to defend itself against all comers, or lose its defense to any subsequent challengers. In Canada, we are protected from frivalous lawsuits similar to this. That is, the two companies don't sell the same product and don't have the same name; ergo, there is no suit. And we are too nice to register a domain name just to hold it hostage.

3) Microsoft is big. This issue could have been easily resolved by buying the domain name michaelrowesoftware.com, helping Mike move the site over to the new domain, and putting a new page on the old domain... "This page has moved. Please, update you bookmarks." The whole process would have been completed in a day, and the world would never know. But the guys who know how to do this don't work in the legal department, and don't work in Redmond. (Do I really have to qualify that I mean that they do work for Microsoft, but just in their offices in Houston or Hyderabad?)

4) Mike is being sued. In his last year of high school, he has to take time off and go to court, instead of studying for exams and trying to qualify to enter university. And instead of saving for his first year of university, he has to shell out of his own pocket (with some help) to pay for legal advise in international law. I don't think all the free publicity is working in his favour right now.

I hope everything goes well for Mike and his web design business.

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