Re: Victory in Ajax TM Fuss

[Jeremy G Byrne <jeremy@iz.org>]

At 15:19 23/10/98 -0400, Martha L. wrote:
>A victory!!
[...]
>>we have advised the website owner that our request to Network
>>Solutions, Inc. to suspend the ajax.org domain name has been
>>withdrawn.
>>
>>Sincerely,
>>Colgate Palmolive Consumer Affairs

Unfortunately it appears not to have been withdrawn soon enough (if indeed
at all). www.ajax.org is not currently registered with Network Solutions
(see http://www.internic.net/cgi-bin/itts/whois ), and has not been for at
least the last couple of hours.

If boosting traffic on this list is desirable, might I suggest some casual
activism to raise interest levels? This particular incident, which seems
analogous to the "erosion of Fair Use" situation discussed and lamented on
cni-copyright recently, while perhaps not _directly_ relevant to the UPD is
at least a straightforward, potentially profile-raising (and
participant-attracting) cause. Sure, the site's owners are a bunch of
self-proclaimed "pirates", but there were several nominally commercial
enterprises operating at the URL, and they've had their ability to trade
online severely restricted by Colgate-Palmolive's action. "I'm not a
lawyer, but" I'd be willing to donate a little time and effort to the
administrative side of some kind of compensation claim against
Colgate-Palmolive, for example.

Am I kidding myself here?

CYa,
JEREMY