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Posted by Phil Butler on February 17th, 2007
Google has launched legal action once again, this time against a group of Polish Poets! How's that for coming down hard on the little guy? In the press release Google is evidently trying to get the money hungry, robber baron poets to give up their Internet domain name gmail.pl.
I don't see how Google stood for this type of piracy this long, but Izabela Krawcyz of GMAil - the “Grupa Mlodych Artstow I Literatow, ” or Group of Young Artists and Writers told AFP that Google has turned to the country's IT and telecommunications tribunal to attempt to stop them from using the address http://www.gmail.pl/.
Google says that GMAil has no rights to the name that resembles the US firm's internationally known mail service http://www.gmail.com/. The poet site is enjoying snowballing global success, which encouraged Google ( and the hoard of wanna be bean counters there) to try and snap up variants of the name that use suffixes like .pl in Poland. Krawczyk blasted the suggestion that the group is looking for a payoff from Google to buy the domain name back. Google obviously rather pay Polish lawyers more to get the domain I bet, than to actually pay poets anything for their domain terrorism (sheesh).
“We didn't buy this name just to sell it to Google. As a matter of pride, we're refusing to give it up,” she said.
Google's lawyers were not available for comment, but Krawczyk said Google has made no offer for financial settlement. Google has faced similar problems for failing to register local versions of its domain name in Britain and Germany.
I don't know about you guys but after I write this I am going to see if there is an organization in Poland called Young Anorexic Hotties On Oxycontin (Yahoo) or maybe Mostly Sadistic Nerds (MSN). Heck the major players may not have enough money to track down all the potential infractions. I bet Google uses an algorithm and a crawler to track down would be poets all over the globe. I wonder if I can get everyone with my name to have their's changed?
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| Baron VC :: links for 2007-02-17 | February 18th, 2007 at 2:19 am |
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[…] Polish Poets Threaten Google Supremacy! Don’t be evil. Maybe they can change it to “Don’t be a bastard”? Just a thought. (tags: google) […] | |
| Google Goes After Polish Poets In Microsoft-Style Legal Attack » Daily Domainer | February 19th, 2007 at 11:22 pm |
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[…] Profy: Polish Poets Threaten Google Supremacy! […] | |
| Google Poland Ops | April 13th, 2007 at 5:49 am |
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[…] Google already maintains a research and development center in Krakow, Poland. I am wondering if Google executives traveling to Poland to sue the poets there got infatuated with some really cute Polish girls and decided to build another Google center as a cover. Let's just hope for Google's sake that they do not get the Poles hacked off like they seem to everyone else lately. […] | |
| Google Poland Ops » TechAddress | April 13th, 2007 at 6:32 am |
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[…] Google already maintains a research and development center in Krakow, Poland. I am wondering if Google executives traveling to Poland to sue the poets there got infatuated with some really cute Polish girls and decided to build another Google center as a cover. Let's just hope for Google's sake that they do not get the Poles hacked off like they seem to everyone else lately. […] | |
| » Polish Poets to Google: A domain by any other name won’t smell … as sweet. « Joe Duck-My 1983 | August 4th, 2007 at 11:13 am |
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[…] Phil’s got more and a fine choice of title. […] | |
| MyKinda Технологии » Blog Archive » 9 лет компании Google – 9 способов отпраздновать | September 29th, 2007 at 4:21 am |
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[…] Завести себе почтовый ящик на сервисе Gmail.ru (не имеющем к Google и официальному Gmail никакого отношения – просто Google не подумал вовремя выкупить домен). Казалось бы, что в этом праздничного для Google? Думаю, что если этот загадочный сервис наберет сколько-нибудь значительное количество пользователей, то Google наконец заметит его, подаст иск в суд (компания Google – известный любитель подавать иски в суд, вспомним, к примеру, как они пытались отсудить домен Gmail.pl у польских поэтов), отсудит домен, и в рунете появится официальная почта от Gmail. […] | |
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| Jorge | February 17th, 2007 at 10:34 pm |
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Google should lose this one. GMAiL is the acronym for Polish poets’ names, and that trumps any claim that Google has for trademark originating in another country, and which is not used in Poland. | |
| Phil Butler | February 17th, 2007 at 10:59 pm |
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Thanks Jorge, I agree that regardless of Google’s argument, the poets got to that domain specific first. I just thought it funny that Google would not think of the domains first. Did they not remember a whole country? | |
| Joe Duck | February 18th, 2007 at 2:04 am |
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The Polish Poets, silently Then mighty Google shouted This ain’t no joke, solemny spoke, the Google legal tier. “But we all think it’s funny”, said a thousand blogging fools Get off your ass | |
| Phil Butler | February 18th, 2007 at 4:16 am |
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Well said! I love creative people Accosted by the high and mighty, distant panzers roaming again For fear of precedents, mighty Google readied the final blow For the sake of one ipod add, a creative license lost | |
| Svetlana Gladkova | February 19th, 2007 at 7:49 pm |
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Wow, such a poetry on the weekend BTW, I have just found the website at www.gmail.ru provides free email services to Russian users (definitely not by Google). They actually have their own colorful logo, lots of ads and an announcement of Gmail.Ru being a registered trademark. I wonder when Google notices this one? And why they have not thought about two countries with two domains already? | |
| lizardium | February 23rd, 2007 at 6:14 am |
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Whatever happened to the motto “Don’t Be Evil”? Surely, this qualifies as evil behavior. Google, you should be ashamed of yourself! | |
| Cezary Okupski | May 3rd, 2007 at 6:02 pm |
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Everyone, don’t be so quick attacking big bad Google Inc.! Only later they seem to come up with the suspected acronym. This name - Grupa Młodych Artystów i Literatów (Group of Young Artists and Writers) - looks a little odd to me. I am not sure of its English version as my mother tongue is Polish, but writers is a subset of artists and it is like repeating. No other artistic organizations call them in this manner. The only similar I can think of is Związek Polskich Artystów Fotografików where there is artists-photographers rather than Artists and Photographers. If I were serious about the group I would call it Grupa Młodych Artystów. | |
| Svetlana Gladkova | May 4th, 2007 at 12:58 am |
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Cezary, you reserach really contributes a lot to our current knowledge about the issue, thank you vry much. I am especially impressed by the registration date for the domain and attempts to sell it in the very same month. It is not something we could expect a really existing community would want to do to its official WWW name. | |
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