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The .feedback scam

everythingsysadmin.com

131–140 of 171 posts

Re: The .feedback scam

#131
Couldn't companies do a class-action on the fact that they pre-registered domains with trademarks belonging to other companies but not giving those domains to those companies?

There's precedent for getting a domain based on trademark from someone else.

Re: The .feedback scam

#132
post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In 22 years of living in germany, ive never once heard anyone use that atrocity of a word or anything close to it - I guess it's a joke-word from the tv series How I met your mother making fun of the fact that many complex german words are just glued together from other words, eg. Krankenhaus ("ill building" or "building for the ill"). This does not mean that every compound word you theoretically could form is actual…

Isn't that true? After 2 years in Germany, it was my feeling that you could freely associate several words into one. I'll defer to your 22 years of expertise, obviously.

You can combine words, but the result has to be a logical structure. The word by OP is nonsensical. It can't exist.

Re: The .feedback scam

#133
post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wording things differently rarely has any significant legal impact. (Except in advertising, right?)

Wording things differently very often has significant legal impact, depending on the situation and context. I have no legal training, but regularly review lengthy legal contracts and discuss them with lawyers, and tiny changes in wording can have huge implications in what they mean. Outside of legal contracts, many agreements (such as an agreement over email, or even verbal) can be considered legally binding, and so…

I was a bit sloppy in my original statement. Yes, if you word a contract differently it will often have a different meaning, that's not really just a rewording, that's a material change. Same with other agreements. The different wording describes different requirements for fulfilling a contract.

An example of what I'm talking about is the difference between gifts and loans. Say you're applying for a mortgage, and I give you $50k as a gift. Sure, you can use that as a down payment. But if I make you agree to pay the $50k "gift" back as a condition, it's not a gift, it's a loan, and calling it a gift is mortgage fraud. No matter how you word it, you can't change a loan into a gift.

Just like with extortion. Extortion is an act, and you can carefully word it all you want, but it doesn't change the fact of extortion, but it may make it easier or more difficult to prove.

But I'm not trying to say something especially deep here, just that it's common for people to look at the language of the law and believe that they can avoid consequences by rewording a few things.

Re: The .feedback scam

#134
post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In 22 years of living in germany, ive never once heard anyone use that atrocity of a word or anything close to it - I guess it's a joke-word from the tv series How I met your mother making fun of the fact that many complex german words are just glued together from other words, eg. Krankenhaus ("ill building" or "building for the ill"). This does not mean that every compound word you theoretically could form is actual…

Isn't that true? After 2 years in Germany, it was my feeling that you could freely associate several words into one. I'll defer to your 22 years of expertise, obviously.

You totally can. Technically sometimes you need a certain conjugation or a linking "s", but usually you just combine the words.

I guess they meant that not every compound word is one that Germans actually use (as you would expect when somebody claims "it's a German word"). But you can totally make up words on the spot that every German will understand

Re: The .feedback scam

#136

They also own .sucks... of which they were charging $2500 per domain. I don't know why these manipulative TLDs are allowable without considerable regulation. This latest example seems to be more directly extortion, and is likely illegal in many places.

FYI - They do not own .sucks. .sucks is owned by Vox Populi Registry

https://icannwiki.org/.sucks

Re: The .feedback scam

#137
post #97

I worked for a feedback company in the past. Nobody cares even when they pay for a feedback widget and get the reports emailed/pushed to their managers. Most of the clients didn't even login to the site or collect the feedback (sign up for notifications, download a csv, etc). AFAICT, companies paid for the feedback widget to check some box on a yearly powerpoint along the lines of "manages user feedback". It's a good…

I think that google is kind of complicit in this then since the only way to get the stars under your listings in paid search listings or product listings is to have a certain amount of ratings using some "approved" site that they look at. We have been able to speak with the few customers that have left negative feedback and resolve issues, so it isn't useless. But Google is certainly helping to push the industry.

Re: The .feedback scam

#138

Wow, the author is not exaggerating when saying it is a scam. Looking at the .feedback page for Stack Overflow, it says at the top, in fairly large letters "We make Stack Overflow, where the world's developers get answers, share knowledge & find jobs they love. Also proud builders of the @stackexchange Q&A network." Then at the absolute bottom, in small, washed out print it says "Disclaimer: This site is provided to…

It is a scam, but the reality is nobody will ever go to these domains, they will never be ranked in google or bing. So who cares. I could create a site called myfeedbacksite.com/google or google.myfeedbacksite.com.. same thing.

Actually, if you search in Google for site:.feedback you'll see about 45,700 pages of .feedback sites indexed in Google.

They are showing up for many brand searches.

https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3A.feedback&ie=utf-8&oe...

Re: The .feedback scam

#139
post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, the reviews on stackoverflow.feedback are quite informative! Dan Manny says: Stack over flow made me loose money!!! Bad code with security wholes in it crashed my clients site!! Warning warning for scammers and Antonio B. of Indonesia says: Best site for solving programming issue!!!11!one! The most user and newbie friendly site! 11/10 would recommend You know you can trust reviews like this!

> !!!11!one! Is there a word for the feeling you get when you see 15+ year old idiot message board / forum / usenet catchphrases apparently still going strong? It's a curious mix of nostalgia and revulsion.

I agree!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!11111!!!!!!!1onemilliononehundredeleventhousandonehundredelevenpointoneoneoneoneoneoneoneoneone!!!1

Re: The .feedback scam

#140
post #54

Comment from the article: > I would like to add that IMHO all new TLDs are scam. Brand owners are forced to register their name in many of them. .feedback is just the tip of the iceberg. I think this is the core issue here. I remember that a few of ICANN's new TLDs caused similar issues. The idea of selling TLDs to companies for use at their discretion is horrible enough, but they also seem to be completely ignorant…

I actually did a fairly robust empirical analysis of the extent to which brand owners did 'register their name in many of them' back when the round of ICANN gTLD expansions was happening.

The conclusion was that both currently-fashionable arguments were kinda bogus: the new gTLDs couldn't deal with 'artificial scarcity' in any real sense, if it even existed, and yet few brand owners were defensively registering in the existing domains (even .org) so claims that it would extract massive economic rent were also overblown.

It was eventually published in the Journal of Information Policy (vol.3, pp.464-484). There's a full-text copy on https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:ba4ca100-2f81-43ea-b207-84... if anyone's interested...

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