Nissan tried to sue Uzi Nissan, the owner of the domain, for cyber-squatting and lost...[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nissan_Motors_v._Nissan_Comput...
I believe Ford sued the owner of volvoguy.com and won.
I suspect, though that the owner of volvoguy.com wasn't named Joe Volvoguy. It also appears that volvoguy.com is currently a Chinese language website (which Google says simply tells me that service is not available in my area). On the other hand, Ford hasn't owned Volvo in years and the current owners are a Chinese holding company so who knows? (And Volvo Cars, formerly owned by Ford and now Geely Holding Corp, is not to be confused with the publicly traded AB Volvo which makes heavy trucks and which owned Volvo Cars before selling that division to Ford.)
In the 90s, I worked for a web firm that did the Nissan Motors USA customer-facing web sites. The management at Nissan USA were always sure we'd be switching to the nissan.com domain "any day now." It was impressive how much firepower they expended on Uzi Nissan, and how he was able to fight and hold on by a thread. I secretly sympathized with him, although professionally I had to pretend that the "nissanusa.com" dom…
It's a shame there are no more people putting up fun websites anywhere. /s
Oh, they are, but they're drowned out by "look at this create-react-app hackathon project I made! VCs pls give me a series A thx". Alas, the web is now a profit engine first.
A create-react-app hackathon project is absolutely a valid instance of "putting up websites for fun."
In the 90s, I worked for a web firm that did the Nissan Motors USA customer-facing web sites. The management at Nissan USA were always sure we'd be switching to the nissan.com domain "any day now." It was impressive how much firepower they expended on Uzi Nissan, and how he was able to fight and hold on by a thread. I secretly sympathized with him, although professionally I had to pretend that the "nissanusa.com" dom…
My experience is that lots of people often secretly sympathize. Including the lawyers involved. It's pretty easy to throw a case.
Uzi Nissan just died of COVID19. It will be interesting to see if his relatives stick to his principals, and hold onto the web site in memory of him, or make millions and sell to Nissan. I hope they hold on. I predict someone will eventually sell, though. Principled people are few and far between. https://www.autonews.com/automakers-suppliers/uzi-nissan-who...
It kind of paints a dark picture. The family unit used to be like a person who never died. Wealth, ideas, skills, values all would be passed down and developed over time. Now the corporations can outlive us, they can wait. Our families are weaker than the corporations. That scares me.
Many people find corporations more democratic than an aristocracy. I’d rather have AMZN on NASDAQ than have Lord Bezos become a trillionaire.
Nissan is also a river in southern Sweden running through the city of Halmstad. I assume that name is older than the car company. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nissan_(river)
Japanese companies often have long and convoluted histories (Nintendo was founded in the 19th century as a maker of playing cards and at various times sold food and was a taxi company). Nissan was founded in 1928 as an offshoot of a mining company and until the Japanese real estate crash of the early 1990s was primarily a real estate company which also made cars. But yes, the river name is still probably older than the company.
Their only purpose seems to be to occupy this domain to counter Nissan the car company. Their own actual business doesn't look that remarkable or even successful. It has eclipsed the purpose of existence almost. Maybe time to declare this isn't worth the trouble in life, and there are better things to spend effort on? What are you winning? Sell, and make a buck while you can. There isn't much principled fight to be g…
> Their only purpose seems to be to occupy this domain to counter Nissan the car company. It's the guy's name. He registered the domain 5 years before Nissan Motor Company showed interest. He seems to have started businesses further and further from "automobiles" so that he wouldn't have a trademark dispute with the car company. > Their own actual business doesn't look that remarkable or even successful. Is that the…
It's lots of people's names, of course. I don't agree that domains should be redistributed based continuously purely on "what's the biggest company with this name," but I also don't like how much momentum you get just from being interested in the web in the 90s and picking up the juicy domain names. I don't have a great solution, but I don't think the status quo does a great job of allocating domain names with either economic efficiency or with user-friendliness in mind. Of course, one could certainly argue that domain names are much less important now that most people get their content either directly from the massive media/social networking websites or indirectly from Google searches.
I remember reading the story by the domain owner how nissan tried to screw him with law suit. This is pretty old case and I wonder why it popped up to the top: https://www.digest.com/Big_Story.php
I think because the owner died recently from Covid-19.
It kind of paints a dark picture. The family unit used to be like a person who never died. Wealth, ideas, skills, values all would be passed down and developed over time. Now the corporations can outlive us, they can wait. Our families are weaker than the corporations. That scares me.
Many people find corporations more democratic than an aristocracy. I’d rather have AMZN on NASDAQ than have Lord Bezos become a trillionaire.