iPhone.com - Casualty of War: What to do with mistaken identity?
Home » iPhone.com - Casualty of War: What to do with mistaken identity?A ROSE BY ANY OTHER NAME
It appears the destination of iPhone.com has become a recent casualty of war. In the last week, the registrant of the domain name has decided to pack it in as a direct destination for the company that owns it, a business that has nothing to do with the Cupertino crusader. Indeed, what would YOU do, if the domain name for your company began receiving an exhorbitant amount of non-converting visitors, only interested in someone else's product?
There is a veritable blitz of buzz occuring right now for Apple's upcoming iPhone product. As the most highly anticipated consumer device of all time, it spans almost all age groups, and exists as a product category nearly everyone uses. The domain name, registered to Mike Kovatch of the Internet Phone Company , has unfortunately gone somewhat incognito. It's WHOIS information has been hidden at some point in the last several months using the "Domains By Proxy" privacy service offered by GoDaddy, and the domain name no longer points to its website, but to a billboard, for which the company itself only holds the top banner.
Google Cache dated May 19th, still showing the original website
BIG TUBES,
SMALL PIPES
But, there is a problem in naming such a popular creation, especially when you pick a name that has accrued baggage. Last November, reports came out that uTube.com, the domain name of Universal Tube and Rollform Equipment Corporation, was suing YouTube for all the bandwidth costs they've had to endure from throngs of visitors looking to view videos of skateboarding dogs and the latest karaoke dance sensation.
Universal Tube owner Ralph Girkins went so far as to say, "This is an enormous expense and distraction for us. Contact with our customers has been disrupted, so I fear we have lost sales. We have even been contacted by police in Australia accusing us of having child pornography on our Web site. I resent this personally and this confusion is hurting our business." Well, ok then. Unlikely to have gotten a dime from YouTube/Google, utube.com has settled for putting a minature search portal at the top of their website, and calling it a day.
SABRE-RATTLING
At the beginning of this year, Apple itself was in a name dispute with Cisco, who owned the federal trademark to the "iPhone" name in the United States (Apple, itself owning various trademarks in other countries). That dispute was settled in short order, yet according to iProng.com... as of December 15th , the owner of iPhone.com had not heard a peep from neither Apple nor Cisco about acquiring the domain name from him, saying only that "No one to my knowledge has made contact." Regardless of what Kovatch, The Internet Phone Company, or Nuvio (which seems to provide the services listed on the site), plan to do, it seems clear that for the foreseeble future, Apple, Inc. has marked its territory with the iPhone brand... perhaps marking it, dare I say, with the pleasant sound of "holy angels tinkling" . What should Apple or Cisco make of this latest development for the destination? Will iPhone.com ever point to www.apple.com/iphone as iTunes.com does to www.apple.com/itunes? Hard to tell.
While Apple currently owns iphone.org (a fact that many originally saw as an early indicator of its eventual plans), and has made publically reported and ultimately successful efforts to acquire iTunes.co.uk from its former owner Benjamin Cohen, it remains to be seen what will it will do in this case. Steve Jobs was recently quoted in reference to the domain name "myiPhone.com" , saying "I recommend you changing the name, we have a team of lawyers to go after that kind of stuff." Site owner Vincent Nguyen took this as a sign, and changed the website name to myiTablet.com. Still, the landscape of naming conflicts persists, and after the launch of the new product on June 29th, it will be interesting to see how long it takes Apple's lawyers to turn their attention from patent squabbles toward parsing the somewhat clouded pathway for asserting their joint trademark rights on the net.
[UPDATE]] SLIDING FURTHER DOWN
It appears whoever currently owns the domain name "iPhone.com" has begun working even harder to monetize its traffic on the iPhone trademark. "Whoever" being preferred, as it is no longer clear if the name has changed hands behind closed doors. Whereas the previous design seemed modest and only tenuously related to the cell phone industry, the latest change on iPhone.com now boldy markets "cellphones that play music (click to buy)". So, there you have it. When your bandwidth bills come rolling in, just take the money and run! Mm. Can you say WIPO ? I knew you could.
