Gewgle.com's legal struggle with Google

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Thank you for your interest in our current legal situation regarding Google. If you have anything you'd like to say about this issue, please visit Gewgle.com's GuestBook. The goal of this page is provide a detailed view of what has happened, what is happening, and our views on the entire situation.

Isn't it coincidental that the UDRP isn't located at udrp.com?
Isn't it coincidental that the ACPA isn't located at acpa.com?
Isn't this some sort of indication that there is a problem?

History

April 18, 2003 - It seems that a phone call is worth 1,000 e-mails. After just a few phone calls between myself and Google (Rose Hagan), we have come to a working solution that includes the domain names gewgle.com and frewgle.com being transfered to Google. I can't express my gratification to everyone who has supported gewgle.com through this process. Thank you!!!!

April 09, 2003 - Google (Rose) & I have been talking on the phone and its possible this situation will be resolved reasonably. Come back for more updates!

March 20, 2003 - Google finally sent us a reponse!!! After nearly a month, Rose finally crafted the worst response we've received yet! Instead of refuting any of the points made in my previous letter, she instead notes that

  • 'Our communications seem to have gone off on a tangent' (read: I haven't responded in nearly a month, so what?)
  • 'we are confident that we would prevail if we were to file a UDRP proceeding', yet she completely fails to logically prove my alleged violations
  • 'We would like to resolve this matter without having to file a UDRP action' (read: We're big, you'd lose, so give up)

We will, ofcourse, not 'give up'.

Febuary 25, 2003 - A response to Google has been sent back (finally, after two weeks ;) ). In a nutshell, this response refutes Google's allegation that the clearly joking "Have a credit card and 5 minutes? eMail me" which appeared on gewgle.com over a year ago was an example of the alleged commercial nature of gewgle.com. Read the full response to Google here

Febuary 10, 2003 - Google finally replied after nearly two weeks. Google's Febuary 10, 2003 response here. This e-mail was a little overwhelming at first, as it was chalk full of legal references. After a little poking and prodding around, it turns out that 2/4 references to previous court cases were won based on default judgement (Caterpillar Inc. v. Telescan)! These cases make _extremely_ poor case citations and regardless, only apply to sites of a commercial nature. Rose really focused on "Have a credit card and 5 minutes? eMail me" which appeared on gewgle.com over a year ago. I figured this was fairly obviously a joke and a take on "Have a credit card and 5 minutes? Get your ad on Google today".

January 28, 2003 - We sent back a response to Google's January 21, 2002 e-mail.

January 21, 2003 - Rose Hagan of Google responded to my response. Google's Resonse (2nd message) Full Text Here. Their response has failed to dispute
  • Bad faith registration of a domain name pursuant the UDRP
  • Bad faith registration of a domain name pursuant the ACPA
  • Phonetic similiarity to Googol and Frugal, common English words
However, she does go on to
  • Dispute that the previous web site did not consititue parody
  • Assert that the current web site "continue[s] to use logos that use the font and color scheme of Google's."
  • Dispute that "links to actual Google searches may lead consumers to believe there is some connection between our sites and yours and could cause confusion."

January 16, 2003 - After deciding to fight this case, I crafted a response to Rose Hagan's original cease and desist e-mail and sent it to Rose Hagan of Google. Several ideas in the response came from an excellent lawyer from Stanford (I need to check if she wishes to remain anonymous or not), but the letter itself was written entirely by me proofreading done by friends and family.

January 10th, 2003 - Google.com's Rose Hagan sent me a demanding letter that, within seven days, demanded I: 

1.        Disable the gewgle.com and frewgle.com websites and discontinue any and
all use of the Domain Names;
2.        Take steps to transfer the Domain Names to Google;
3.        Identify and agree to transfer to Google any other domain names
registered by you that contain the GOOGLE or FROOGLE marks or are
confusingly similar to the GOOGLE or FROOGLE marks; and
4.        Permanently refrain from any use of the terms GOOGLE and FROOGLE or any
variation thereof that is likely to cause confusion or dilution.
and accused me of: Not knowing what to think of these accusations and demands, I took down gewgle.com and replaced it with a very informative page about dragons! while I considered my legal options (included with her message was a Microsoft Word Document, which is the proprietary file type I am referring to in my following response)

October, 2000 -> January 10th 2003 - Gewgle.com grew in popularity, receiving numerous hits per day. I began receiving so many hits, that the little Linux server on a DSL connection was no longer enough to handle the traffic. In this time, I spent many hours maintaining, and updating the site. In July of 2001, I was sent an image by a fan of gewgle.com to use free of charge. Recently, I have outsourced a dedicated server from Defender Hosting to handle the numerous requests. Even though this is costing me a significant sum of money, I have never:

  • Advertised on Gewgle.com
  • Asked for donations
  • Sold visitor information
  • Collected visitor information for any purpose
  • Offered this domain for sale

August 24th, 2000 - I personally registered the domain name gewgle.com with Network Solutions, for a price of $70 (domain has since been transfered to Register.com. Just a couple months after registering it, I was serving DNS and a simple web page off of a personal, very small Linux server. I began using the domain name for e-mail, personal DNS information, and a small website, that simply forwarded searches to Google.com, like many, many other websites do.