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What's in a name? On the
web, a good "domain name" -- such as "amazon.com" or "newsday.com" -- is
profoundly important, particularly when it's the name of an online retailer.
As e-tailing priestcraft dictates, your name must be simple and memorable.
It must end with a ".com", the marker of modern commerce. And it must,
absolutely must, be unique. You can't be confused with someone else, because
the name is how the customer finds you. If they accidentally type in a
competitor's name, you're screwed. Companies who find themselves desiring
a good .com name will thus wage bloodthirsty legal battles to get it.
Such is the recent and surreal
case of eToys.com. Two weeks ago, the
online toy retailer actually hauled a ragtag group of performance artists
into court claiming that their website hurt eToys.com's brand and domain
name.
The story goes like this:
The artists, who live in Europe, produce work that mocks and critiques
the modern marketplace. They decided to call their group eToy, and on October
13, 1995, they registered the domain name "etoy.com"
. Soon, they'd set up virtual shop, and were producing online parodies
of products and corporate blather. Each year, particularly at Christmas,
they received tons of hits and admirers. They won awards from arts festivals,
including the prestigious Ars Electronica Golden Nica (the winner this
year is Linux). And, I should point out, they did this all years before
eToys.com -- the toy company -- ever existed.
But eToys.com eventually
did exist. They registered their domain on Nov. 3, 1997. And by this summer,
with e-retailing becoming a juggernaut force, they decided they didn't
like eToy.com having such a similar domain name. Things came to a head
in August, when an online shopper, looking to buy something from eToys.com,
accidentally wound up at eToy.com. Enraged by the use of swear words in
the art, he fired off a letter of complaint to eToys.com. eToys.com decided
to take etoy.com to court, claiming the site had diluted their brand.
The suit seemed laughable,
particularly considering the eToy.com artists have been online for two
years longer than the toy company. But -- and this is the head-slappingly
obvious lesson here -- money talks. Two weeks ago, the toy company convinced
a California state court to grant an injunction against eToy.com, preventing
them from using the domain until the case is resolved. Facing massive fines
if they remained online, eToy.com pulled their site. (More details are
available at a fan site, http://www.toywar.com).
The lesson here? In the info-age,
.coms belong to real companies only, dammit. No artists are allowed --
even if the whole point of their art is to discuss corporate behavior.
And as for free speech? Riiiiiiiight.
Even viewed through a purely
e-commerce lens, the story here is alarming. What the eToys.com debacle
illustrates is that quality, service and efficiency simply don’t matter
when it comes to online success. Getting your name right is more important.
Sticks and stones may break your bones, but names will make you millions. |
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