Battles between two: bitter domain duels
Telephones, cars, color television and the like - in the past, technological progress was always accompanied by doubters and critics. In the beginning, hardly anyone really wanted to believe in the Internet. The World Wide Web is no more than hype, said someone who should have known better in 1993: Microsoft founder, Bill Gates.
It’s unknown whether companies at that time were influenced by this and other expert opinions negating the importance of the internet but most companies certainly did not give it much attention. And as a result, many owners, board members and marketing experts failed to secure a meaningful domain for their businesses.
Would you like to hear about some examples? Here you go:
#1 MTV is negligent with mtv.com
As a music station aimed at a young target group, MTV should have recognized the equally youthful trend towards digitisation at the beginning of the 1990s. But instead executives, the television station Viacom Media Networks founded in 1981 had only one person interested in the World Wide Web: their video jockey (VJ) Adam Curry. With wise foresight, he secured the domain mtv.com for himself.
The story then turns bizarre because nobody at MTV and its parent company Viacom was interested in the domain ownership claims of an ordinary employee. This is how Curry later reported it: When asked by his superiors, they denied having a problem with mtv.com's domain registration. What's more, they said they had no interest in the Internet.
This attitude changed a year later. In 1994, Curry resigned from MTV. And with him, mtv.com also left the station. The sudden interest by the decision-makers in the Internet, led to a lawsuit against Curry - and finally to an out-of-court settlement.
#2 No one interested in mcdonalds.com?
The actual company name in connection with a serious dotcom domain - nowadays the dream of every marketing expert and start-up founder. But in 1994 obviously it was not desirable, at least for McDonalds. Anyone who believes that the world-famous fast food chain had an increased interest in owning mcdonalds.com at that time is mistaken.
Rather, Joshua Quittner developed this interest. At the time, the journalist was working on a story about the value of domain names. And the unregistered McDonalds domain came just in time for him. He secured mcdonalds.com and asked the Burger group if they were not interested in the web address. The answer is astounding by today's standards: he was asked wether he really believed that the Internet was a big deal.
So Quittner kept the domain - and at the end of his later published article asked the readers what he should do with then seemingly worthless domain for McDonalds. In the end, an agreement was reached: the journalist released the domain for a donation of 3,500 US dollars to a public school in Brooklyn. The money was invested in computers and Internet access.
#3 Candyland.com – for adults or children?
Eleanor Abbott had a colourful educational game for children in mind when she designed the board game Candyland for Milton Bradley in 1948. Much more interesting is what Internet users could find in 1995 under the domain candyland.com: an adult website from the porn publisher Internet Entertainment Group.
Hasbro was not particularly enthusiastic about this and took their case to court. In 1996, the domain changed hands by court order. The reason: Hasbro had owned the trademark rights to Candyland and Candy Land since 1951. In addition, Internet users and especially children who landed on the web address candyland.com would expect something other than pornography.
Even more domain disputes
Since these disputes in the early Internet age, there have been disputes about domains again and again. For example, an association called "People Eating Tasty Animals" was quicker to register the peta.org domain than the animal rights organization "People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals", known as PETA. In 2001, after a court decision on trademark infringement, the domain went to the real PETA.
For years, Warner Brothers, the owners of the comic figure of the same name, and the IT company Road Runner Computer Systems, fought over roadrunner.com. Following an out-of-court settlement, the domain now belongs to a joint venture of Time Warner, MediaOne, Microsoft, Compaq and Advance/Newhouse.