iPhone Domainers Beware

[nicholas]

Arnold Kim, the founder and chief editor of MacRumors.com wrote this in his blog recently:


It was obvious it was going to happen, but that didn’t stop people from jumping on the bandwagon.

After Apple’s aggressive defense of the iPod-related domain names, it seemed obvious they weren’t going to let people get too comfortable with the many iPhone domain names.

Vincent Nguyen of MyiPhone.com writes that he was excited to meet Steve Jobs at D: All Things Digital, but that excitement quickly turned to a sickening feeling:

Turns out, Steve isn’t such a great fan of MYiPhone as we are about the phone itself. His comment to me about the site was “I recommend you changing the name, we have a team of lawyers to go after that kind of stuff.” Well, you could’ve knocked me over with a Mac mini. He mentioned that we should change it to anything other than iPhone in the name.

Apple has been aggressively pursuing commercial websites using the “iPod” as part of their domain. The most prominent move was iPodLounge moving to iLounge. While I have no official confirmation that Apple “forced” this particular move, Apple’s interest in the iPod name was certainly a factor.

Link here

 

[rodash]

You have to wonder if people like Jobs have a brain in their head. I would have thought it was in Apple's interest to have as many domain names as possible promoting the iPhone brand. The more domain names based on the term "iPhone" the stronger Apple's product brand becomes.

Microsoft is the same. They are about to introduce surface computing but rather than let it freely become an industry platform they will go after every little Tom, Dick and Harry that's registered a surface domain name. I would have thought there'd be more commercial merit in letting people flood the ether with surface websites. What quicker way of establishing a critical mass for surface computing!


These people have to stop thinking with their old hats on. Sooner or later a rival is going to build a brand on a strategy that sees thousands of third party websites promoting his products and he will take big market share away from these guys.

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[DoctorZarkov]

It would be an interesting move for Apple to vet the sites infringing on their TM and pursue licensing arrangements with those that they consider beneficial to allow to continue. If they do nothing they jeopardize their TM.

 

[Peter]

You have to wonder if people like Jobs have a brain in their head. I would have thought it was in Apple's interest to have as many domain names as possible promoting the iPhone brand. The more domain names based on the term "iPhone" the stronger Apple's product brand becomes.

The problem exists that apple have no control over the content of those sites. Any company worth anything wants to be able to control the publicity their product receives.

Also if they just let people use their trademark anywhere then they are in risk of it being diluted.

 

[bobbie]

Plus they have to compete with their own trademark in adwords campaigns if they just let anyone and their brother use their trademark.