You confuse me with Cherm who started the tread, the ******** is why he didn't provide you with the URL, I guess he knew about the restriction of it here. You declared the tread useless before asking for more info, thats the merit for me calling you on it, no biggie. I am typing fast and doing other things at the same time, that's why I don't provide everything under the sun in the same post.
This makes me laugh. Truth be told, it happens all the time, especially on the internet. Think of it as buying out another company...only you're only buying another web address. This is business. It wasn't malicious or with intent to hurt someone (althought the ********** deal is a great way to get your point across to someone). Come on, people. Rob is simply finding a way to get more traffic to this site. Sure, to the untrained eye, it could look a little deceptive. But, one must be willing to look at all sides. This "deception" is nothing more than simple business practice. Deal with it. Rob, you're doing a great job with the site. I will be subscribing to LotusChat.com as soon as I can. Also, if you do the **********.com link, it goes right to the Lambo chat section. Perfect
Creating a simular url as your competitor for the sole purpose of directing people to your site is a violation of the cyber squating law and probably others. The dashless url was registered after Allan's site went online. What Rob has done is no different than if someone registered www.wal-mart.com to direct people to their store instead of the retail giant. Dashing out LP's url in posts is sneaky but perfectly legitimate. As it's rob's site he can allow or disallow any content he sees fit. Rob doesn't have to support the competition by allowing the url to be posted but he can not interfere by cyber squating.
--Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, after the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 Never confuse tactics with strategy.
I would be inclined to say the same.... Allan did a lot to annoy Rob so if nothing else it's just turnabout. This subject has been discussed a while back, I don't have time to dig it up but it was pretty much the same arguments. At that time I suggested that Rob should also grab Ferrari-chat.com (still available) but he didn't feel that it was all that important.
Suppose, just suppose, that Rob is planning to add more chats down the line. In the mean time, while he gets his **** together, he grabs up a half dozen lotus, lambo, bmw, jaguar, etc. (dash) chat (dot) com's. While he's getting those sites organized, he registers them and points them at FerrariChat.com. No harm, no foul in my book. Do you think there's a chance that the meta-tag, or whatever you call it, at Allan-mambo's site has the word Ferrari or FerrariChat in it? Highly likely. That's competition. It's not a game on the internet, it's a friggin' business, especially for guys like Rob. Allan does it for spite, not for profit. Jeez, isn't there some better way to use your time than beating Rob up over this particular item? Just my lousy $.02. Dave M.
What Rob is doing is fairly common practice. I do think registering things like Lotuschat is pushing the envelope, but as long as nobody disputes it, there's no harm done. When somebody with a legitimate interest in setting up a Lotus site (for example) does dispute it, Rob will almost certainly be on the losing side of the fight. This is because of the new relatively painless and low-cost domain name dispute rules. I'm quoting a little portion here : The challenger (owner of a paid Lotus enthusiasts' site, for instance) should certainly be able to prove point 1. Point 2. is very easy to prove because one would be hard put to figure out what possible use a Ferrari chat board has for such a link. Point 3 is difficult to prove, "bad faith" is rather pejorative and unclear, although some posters here have already jumped the gun on this. As a matter of fact, that competing Lambo site should in theory be able to launch a dispute now, and they'd likely win, IMHO. But all these things aside, as long as the other "concerned" parties are apparently fine with it (or at least not moved enough to launch a complaint), I don't see why anyone here should be too concerned about it either. For all we know, if Rob voluntarily gives up those domain names, they'd just go to pr0n sites, and I wouldn't want to see that happen.
You do realize any complainant(s) could have commandeered said .com(s) by simply registering it/them before he did? It's not like he's had them since your ancestors, the mighty monkey, first learned to walk upright (mighty big IF). Plenty'o'time - plenty'o'chances - he just thought of it a few years - or less - before complainant(s) decided it was the biggest issue in the world this particular day. A mini history about Domains Think.com in May of 1985 was the first .com registered. By October of 1991, the registrations grew to 165 .com, 22 .org, 20 .net, 285 .edu and 3 .us. The domains had expanded to include several branding (extensions) which to this date in include a large list of country codes. In 1995, the number of registered domains were up to 6,000 in existence and 2 years later reached 22,000. 18 years later (2003), there were over 12 million domains registered.
Legally, it is most certainly cybersquatting. If fact it fits the very definition of why the laws have been created. It is an abuse. If you register WWW.MICRO-SOFT.COM you are in violation of the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act, even if you are a software company in Seattle. The laws were introduced for this exact reason. To stop potential abuse. If he owned the domain previously, he would be entitled to reasonable compensation for the rights but if you register any derivative of an existing domain for the express purpose of redirecting traffic away from it, you are in violation of the act. I was hoping he would actually answer for his own actions. Guess what I am hearing about this guy is spot on. Here is what he apparently thinks of the hard working mods here: (what a POS) from the vbulletin web page, the words of rob lay http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showpost.php?p=846944&postcount=11 Unreal. This is a really good site. Sure I will now be banned but this is BS. Got a problem with Allan sack up and take it too him. What a worm.
Well, apparently you have a problem. Nobody said, "Rob, if a site has "chat" at the end of a brand name, it's yours and yours only." He chose "chat." Don't you think it's smarter for one site to experience all the software and server headaches and expenses than to experience various downfalls on several different sites at the same time utilizing similar apparatus that has yet to have all the bugs worked out? Obviously, you have NO IDEA how much some of us GLADLY put into working out the bugs when this site was launched in it's current form. It was MONTHS before it got to be stable. And that was AFTER pre-testing! To this day, this site still crashes and has little bugs, so it's still evolving. Better one clusterf*ck than many. You also have to realize, Lamborghinichat was around for years, had so-so traffic & it's software was not upgraded at the same time as ferrarichats'. It was there long before Napoleon syndrome kicked in. The former site was redirected to ferrarichat, ultimately, straight to the lambo section within f-chat. Guess what, the Lamborghini guys dig this software more than the old. And it gets more traffic. Plus, the cross-chat is better instead of having renegade elements. Lotuschat can simply be redirected straight to the "other cars" subforum (which includes Lotus) on f-chat instead of the homepage, OR with a brief stop on the way, saying, "hey pal, click here if you wanna go to the subforum on f-chat, where we talk about X make) thereby rendering your whiney too-late-to-the-party whimperfest moot. If and when the site owner is able to bring the Lamborghini and/or Lotus sites up to the snuff he's satisfied with, he'll do so. That's his choice. You chose not to register the sites before he did. If you'd beaten him to the punch by a millisecond, it'd be yours. Where were you until the very moment in time the site moniker of your heart's desire was chosen and paid for by the site owner? That's all this subscriber's opinion. The only axe I have to grind is with whiners. There are many monikers to choose from - they don't have to end in "chat." As for the competitors, we-he-hell - that was a problem of their own making.
A couple friends of mine own real busy forums and you'd be suprised at how much forums cost to run. One of my buddies runs a 350Z forum and the bandwidth costs and everything exceed $7,500/month. Is Rob supposed to pay out of his own pocket? No. He depends on subscribed members and sponsors like myself and when registering other domain names he brings in potential sponsors and subscribed members. So if you want to complain about this why don't you do your part and help Rob pay the bill like I and many others on here do. Forza, Kevin
You dont know what the hell you are talking about. Whiners lke Michael Crichton, Ronaldinho, EMINEM, Madonna, Morgan Freeman, Robbie Williams, Fulham FC, Microsoft, Intel, Spike Lee, PETA, Bellagio (who was also awarded $100K) etc.. etc.. etc.. were beaten to the punch but prevailed. Easily. If the owner here could demostrate that he had registered **********.com along with lambochat then in fact Rob would have the case against ***********. The fact is when he got wind of the impending registeration he went and registered it for two reason; to abstruct Allan from using it; to redirect the traffic to his site. Period. Anyone who knows anything about the act would laugh at this. It is textbook cybersquatting. In fact you clearly defined why the laws became necessary in the first place. People like you actually feel that you are entitled to profit from the value built into other brands. Those so called Domain Registeration Companies who wanted to steal money from people and companies just because they thought to register the name first... sad, wanna-bes. What Rob is doing is simply stealing and he should be careful. The wannabes just dont get their money, for the most part but competitors can seek damages. You dont thing that if MicroSoft had registered Apple.com seconds before Apple or redirected traffic to registered sites like appple.com or applee.com their own site this would be allowed?? Think again and read up on te law. Obviously, this is a much less important circumstance but that doesnt make it right. And it still makes Rob a little Worm for doing it.
I see... and that makes it OK to steal? The other sites do not have the same cost considerations? I see.
Its only stealing if somebody else owns it. Lambo - power does not own **********. Thats the difference. In fact if you type in www.**********.com you go to **************** rather than lambo power. I gues lambo-talk is stealing from **********. eh?
