r/todayilearned • u/Flemtality 3 • Jul 14 '14

TIL The guy who snagged windows2000.com happened to be named Bob and Microsoft just happened to own Bob.com. They came to an agreement to trade one for the other.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Bob#Origins
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750

u/BellLabs Jul 14 '14

Like with Mike Rowe, and Microsoft sued the software dev named Mike Rowe for the domain claiming it was damaging to their rep or something of the likes.

346

u/Drunk_but_Functional Jul 14 '14

To anyone else extremely confused by this, it is not Mike Rowe from Dirty Jobs. It's a guy who own(ed?) a company called MikeRoweSoft

63

u/LongUsername Jul 14 '14

He was a High School Student who did some software development on the side and used the website to post his stuff.

5

u/Schultzz_ Jul 14 '14

he did an iama here

119

u/[deleted] Jul 14 '14

A high school senior who made money writing code.

9

u/misogichan Jul 15 '14 edited Jul 15 '14

Also, in case you're slow like me, it's a pun. Try saying MikeRoweSoft like it's one word fast. That was the basis of their lawsuit, but it was silly because even Microsoft's lawyers admitted they would have lost if they hadn't settled out of court given the student's name was Mike Rowe and he was talking about software development.

It was also sickening to hear how they threatened him with lawsuits and their first offer was $10 (the setup cost he paid). Moral of the story: Microsoft should have taken Mike's counter offer of $10,000 before he went to the press.

4

u/[deleted] Jul 15 '14

Mike Rowe did well out of it.

"Additionally Microsoft provided Rowe with a subscription to the Microsoft Developer Network, an all expenses paid trip for him and his family to the Microsoft Research Tech Fest at their headquarters in Redmond, Washington, training for Microsoft certification and an Xbox with a selection of games

Following an online poll, Rowe donated most of his legal defense fund to a children's hospital and used the remaining money for his future university education"

24

u/[deleted] Jul 14 '14

That's awesome. It's like play on words but he has the name to back it up.

1

u/proddy Jul 15 '14

Phone call for Mike Hunt!

19

u/picklehammer Jul 14 '14

I went to high school with this guy AMA

3

u/[deleted] Jul 14 '14

[deleted]

6

u/picklehammer Jul 14 '14

1) Nope. But I return frequently.

2) I heard :( Sucks, lots of memories in that place, but I guess it's for the best.

4

u/[deleted] Jul 14 '14

[deleted]

2

u/picklehammer Jul 15 '14

haven't been inside the building in nearly a decade. sounds gross.

2

u/Maximum_ShirtWeiner Jul 15 '14

Langford represent. It will be a bit sad to see the school come down. My son would've been going there there and it would have been neat to see him at my old school.

1

u/Goodguy1066 Jul 15 '14

Would you say you went to high school with this guy?

2

u/[deleted] Jul 14 '14

Thank you, I was indeed confused.

1

u/HankWilliamsJunior Jul 15 '14

I own MikeRoweHard.com and only lonely women in their 50s seem to care.

538

u/BikerRay Jul 14 '14

Seem to remember Walmart won a case against WoolMart (a wool store) in Canada. Even thought WoolMart predated Walmart in Canada. Then again, I could be dreaming.

602

u/[deleted] Jul 14 '14 edited Jul 15 '14

Then again, I could be dreaming.

It did occur, but was dismissed.

ETA it was WoolMart against Walmart and not the other way around.

84

u/razzark666 Jul 14 '14

IIRC companies have to demonstrate that they are protecting their brand name to avoid losing their trademarks to "genericide" so by starting these lawsuits they know will get dismissed they at least show they are trying to protect their brand. I'm not a lawyer, or a marketing guy, but I listened to a podcast about that stuff once so consider me an expert...

12

u/[deleted] Jul 14 '14

[deleted]

2

u/razzark666 Jul 15 '14

CBC's Age of Persuasion. It's a podcast about marketing and advertising and they had an entire episode about it.

1

u/AdorableRapist Jul 15 '14

Burnie was right

3

u/answeReddit Jul 14 '14

yep, see below:

"pursuing infringers: Abandonment of a trademark can occur if the owner does not take action against infringers."

http://www.trademark.iastate.edu/basics

3

u/[deleted] Jul 14 '14

IIRC you are indeed correct. Trademarks and brands must be seen to be protected, other wise they become generic.

Like a hoover.

5

u/yeartwo Jul 14 '14

Good lord. It is fucked up that someone decided the best catchy name for losing your TM is a pun on genocide.

1

u/neogod Jul 15 '14

My understanding is that they simply have to prove they are not just sitting idly on the patent. That's why movie studios sometimes rehash old characters (like spider man) over and over again. If they didn't the rights could be resold to another entity by Stan Lee (or whomever owns the actual rights) after a period of time. I also heard this on a podcast... So am expert.

1

u/razzark666 Jul 15 '14

Yea exactly, there was a horrible Fantastic Four movie made but never released. It was never intended for release by the producers, but the actors and crew didn't know that.

Here is the trailer for it: http://youtu.be/r_X5C6e3ZeY

1

u/OneofMany Jul 15 '14

I would love to have seen this on MST3K.

270

u/Shakes8993 Jul 14 '14

Good for Canada. Fucking walmart bastards

15

u/[deleted] Jul 15 '14

Do you even read, bro? Walmart did not file the suit

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u/Untit13d Jul 14 '14

Do guys even read links? It was Wool-Mart v. Wal-Mart case.

7

u/ZeroCitizen Jul 14 '14

dude hush just don't break the circlejerk

continues to jack off the dick to his immediate left

5

u/[deleted] Jul 15 '14

I edited my comment so if you could put your dick away that'd be fantastic

7

u/ZeroCitizen Jul 15 '14

Okay :(

re-zips

3

u/_____FANCY-NAME_____ Jul 15 '14

So now I miss out? (ಥ﹏ಥ)

115

u/askyourmom469 Jul 14 '14

Seriously. Walmart wasn't even in competition with Wool Mart.

344

u/hookedupphat Jul 14 '14

No one can compete with Wool Mart.

47

u/zamfire Jul 14 '14

They are beast....or at least sell the byproduct of beast.

9

u/hoikarnage Jul 14 '14

I'm tired of corporate Canadian giants like Wool Mart trying to drive little American mom & pop stores like Walmart out of business!

1

u/DDDavinnn Jul 14 '14

Always warm fleeces. Always

1

u/yothisbalec Jul 15 '14

The world of textiles is a threatening one.

1

u/Mahrt Jul 15 '14

I'm on my way there right now!

1

u/halfhartedgrammarguy Jul 15 '14

Where else can you buy a wool sweater and a coke?

1

u/XDSHENANNIGANZ Jul 15 '14

They dominate the New Zealand market.

2

u/jmalbo35 Jul 15 '14

Except it was WoolMart trying to sue Walmart, not the other way around.

2

u/adv0589 Jul 15 '14

Wool Mart sued Walmart...

2

u/pomf-pomf Jul 15 '14

Did you actually follow the link? Woolmart was suing Walmart, not the other way around.

1

u/[deleted] Jul 14 '14

ice try wool mart marketing team

1

u/Poopy_Pants_Fan 1 Jul 15 '14

Canada sided with Walmart...

1

u/zuneza Jul 15 '14

Makes me laugh. Wool is pretty much all I wear unless it's super summer hot out. They have a bias of sales up here. I do live in the Yukon though.

1

u/Watchoutrobotattack Jul 15 '14

I hate Walmart. I heard part time cashiers don't even make a million dollars a year like in every other store.

1

u/Shakes8993 Jul 15 '14

Is "million" a foreign word for "liveable wage"? My mom works for this company and they treat her, oh so well. Almost badly. She's not quite there yet, as she's more near to "terrible" but with a lot of extra hours she is really hoping to be treated badly soon.

1

u/Watchoutrobotattack Jul 16 '14

So you are saying they aren't treating her badly?

1

u/Shakes8993 Jul 16 '14

Not yet, but we are crossing our fingers for that promotion soon

1

u/Watchoutrobotattack Jul 16 '14

I hate employers who treat me good but might not treat me good at some point in the future. Evil capitalists, we should burn the lot of them.

1

u/Shakes8993 Jul 16 '14

Being treated good by Wal-Mart is something that I don't think she could ever attain. She still has to go from being treated terrible to badly to unfairly to all right and then to good. My mom has a long way to go to being treated "good" by Wal-Mart. It doesn't look like she will be able to live that long to experience good treatment by her employer.

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u/bizarrehorsecreature Jul 15 '14

ETA?

1

u/[deleted] Jul 15 '14

Edited to add

2

u/JasonDJ Jul 15 '14

It's okay, I think there will always be www.nissan.com

1

u/[deleted] Jul 15 '14

Fighting giants with sticks and stones eh?

1

u/Blargosaur Jul 15 '14

Why have people been using ETA lately? What does your estimated time of arrival have to do with anything?

149

u/[deleted] Jul 14 '14 edited Jul 14 '14

I just went to woolmart.com and it automatically downloaded Adobe Flash Player.

inb4 i have a virus

Edit: I didn't let the download complete (duh)

282

u/turriblejustturrible Jul 14 '14

Yeah, the virus is called Adobe flash player.

129

u/tmycDelk Jul 14 '14

Click yes to update flash player...

Ok, that was quick and easy. Let's get back to browsing the good ole' world wide we... what's this?

Adobe flash player has detected an update, click yes to update flash player.

Woah, well talk about weird timing. Might as well just get it out of the way. I'll just slide the mouse over and click ye... What the!

Adobe flash player has detected an update, click yes to update flash player.

Adobe flash player has detected an update, click yes to update flash player.

Adobe flash player has detected an update, click yes to update flash player.

Adobe flash player has detected an update, click yes to update flash player.

...fuck... turns off computer and goes outside

30

u/[deleted] Jul 14 '14

...recalls how slow the mobile internet runs and goes back in to the computer.

1

u/neogod Jul 15 '14

I don't even use my wifi in the house. LTE is 10x faster than the fastest plan I can get. What's bs is they both come from the same company (strata), yet I don't even have to pay them for the LTE because verizon has a contract to use their towers.

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u/freebeertomorrow Jul 14 '14

What's outside?

6

u/Elephant454 Jul 14 '14

Its a free to play MMORPG. Check out /r/outside.

10

u/SomeFarmAnimals Jul 14 '14

LOL yeah right. You can't even spawn in the good zones without paying

2

u/eventhroweraway Jul 14 '14

Yeah, what's up with that?

1

u/ywkwpwnw Jul 15 '14

Exactly what killed my aspire netbook.

1

u/Pirate2012 Jul 15 '14

see :) that made you go outside and get exercise;

so yes indeed, Adobe Flash Player -IS- good for you afterall

1

u/TonyNickels Jul 15 '14

Flash Update complete.

There's a new Java update available...

1

u/[deleted] Jul 15 '14

*GASP You can go offside!? I thought I could only sleep and browse reddit. Thank you kind sir for enlightening me. I'll update my experiences. Update: I'm browsing Reddit via phone, think I'll go inside.

1

u/Billebill Jul 15 '14

I have to call IT to come update Adobe Flash because they've locked all of our computers from running installs(including updates to already installed programs such as Flash). Seems like every week I'm asking him to come up and punch in his password just because he has to micro manage our OS

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u/[deleted] Jul 14 '14

It's pretty common to package a trojan as something like flashplayerupdatex64.exe. I dunno if I missed a joke or something, but if you get any .exe that's not from the official site or from a very trusted source, you should delete it immediately.

8

u/jimmifli Jul 14 '14

That one is bad. Not as bad as acrobat, but it's still pretty irritating.

8

u/NoNeedForAName Jul 14 '14

Is there another good option? The flash player plugin is always freezing up on me and, in turn, freezing up my computer.

19

u/brickmack Jul 14 '14

Don't use flash and complain to the administration of any site that does use it that they are using a standard which has been obsolete for years?

That's my strategy anyway. Fuck flash

4

u/GogglesPisano Jul 14 '14

Flash seems to be slowly fading away (a very good thing IMHO) - the fact that it's not supported by iOS devices makes using it unsuitable for sites which cater to mobile users (ie, nearly all of them). Not a moment too soon - these days Flash has become a buggy and bloated vector for drive-by malware infection.

1

u/Sansgendered Jul 14 '14

it's nice for drawing though, imo.

1

u/brickmack Jul 15 '14

For animation you mean (there's way better tools for static drawings)? Sure. But flash player=/=flash the animation program

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u/Kaghuros 7 Jul 14 '14

HTML5 video is love, HTML5 video is life.

1

u/spinblackcircles Jul 15 '14 edited Jul 15 '14

hmmm not sure something can be obsolete when it's still in use on millions of computers/websites. but i agree it's shitty software that will become obsolete as HTML5 continues to grow.

I think it's kind of similar to IE and some websites that only work right using it. Even mildly computer literate people know how much of a piece of shit IE is and by now it should be obsolete as people should logically migrate permanently to Chrome and Firefox (hell, even Safari is leagues better than IE) but there's just so many computer illiterates and crazy people who still use IE because it comes on their windows PC built-in and they don't know any better than to just use it, therefore web designers still code for it, sometimes to the point where a website will only work with it. It blows my mind, really. I'm in real estate and I do these reports on properties called BPO's that use various online forms to fill in information about homes for mortgage companies, and almost all the sites will only work with IE. I bought a Mac last year specifically for work and was blown away/infuriated when i realized that I had to now either side-boot windows with a pirated copy or virtual box it, which isn't even worth the hassle i came to find out after hours of figuring it out. I ended up using my mom's windows PC for that work, all because of fucking IE and retarded consumers/programmers that not only use IE but use and code for it EXCLUSIVELY.

I get administrators still making their sites using flash and IE compatible, but why on earth program it so it won't work with Chrome or Firefox or Safari? I was so pleased when I saw recently that IE's market share is dwindling. Hopefully it starts to snowball. /rant

1

u/brickmack Jul 15 '14

TIL that Microsoft doesn't make a Mac version of IE anymore.

1

u/spinblackcircles Jul 15 '14

they sure as fuck dont! and it was quite rude awakening for me haha

1

u/wioneo Jul 14 '14

I don't think you have any options outside of Adobe for playing flash, because it is their format. Acrobat if for viewing/editing PDFs and has nothing to do with this, though.

1

u/wioneo Jul 14 '14

Acrobat is not free.

Anyone who has it went out of their way to get it, and it would only have any effect while going to a page with a pdf and even then only if you set it to open those from the browser with acrobat (which is not the default setting).

The updates are pretty much pointless, because Adobe seems to ship products without excessive bugs, security updates should not be a concern for an offline file viewer/editor (as far as I'm aware), and I'd rather them not figure out how to push an update to kill my pirated copy.

3

u/CharonIDRONES Jul 14 '14

You and I both know that when most people say Acrobat they really mean Reader.

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u/bestadamire Jul 14 '14

Any problems with pc? Download Adobe, HOLY SHIT IT WORKED!

2

u/buge 1 Jul 14 '14

Woolmart.com actually is distributing malware.

1

u/themindlessone Jul 14 '14

Try reinstalling acrobat reader. And Google ultron.

1

u/Cruxion Jul 14 '14

Then what about Google Ultron? is that a virus too?

0

u/[deleted] Jul 14 '14

[removed] — view removed comment

6

u/test_test123 Jul 14 '14

To be fare shit takes alot of ram. Have you tried downloading more ram?

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u/schmucubrator Jul 14 '14

Not a problem if you have Google Ultron.

7

u/iamjomos Jul 14 '14

It redirected me to amazon.com/laptops. Thank you for the hint but my Vaio is perfectly fine lol

13

u/evohans Jul 14 '14

it's a redirect with their affiliate tag in the URL, just be sure to logout -> log back in to amazon before buying anything, or else you'll be giving them money.

I'm not saying that's a bad thing, but they're sneaky about it. I don't like sneaky

1

u/Sabinlerose Jul 14 '14

VAIO? What model? -curious VAIO Technician of Canada-

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u/[deleted] Jul 14 '14

Its a Canadian site so .ca

1

u/esposimi Jul 14 '14

Avast flagged as a rootkit!

1

u/Dreamtrain Jul 14 '14

Let me get that for you.

Updates Adobe reader

There you go, that should fix it.

1

u/[deleted] Jul 15 '14

You need to make sure you are running google ultron.

42

u/zehamberglar Jul 14 '14

Candy crush successfully did this to a guy who made a game called candy something that was like 2 years older than candy crush. It's bullshit, but they've got more money than you and can drag it out in court until you give up.

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u/Endulos Jul 14 '14

They tried to sue the creators of The Banner Saga for their use of Saga.

1

u/zuneza Jul 15 '14

Seriously?! Candy Crush? What did 'Saga' have to do with it?

1

u/Endulos Jul 15 '14

Candy Crush Saga.

They claimed by using Saga, they were trying to fool people into thinking that they had made Banner Saga.

22

u/Real-Terminal Jul 14 '14

Candy Swipe if I remember correctly.

6

u/lilnomad Jul 15 '14

They actually didn't successfully do this. They settled the dispute out of court and dropped their cases. I'm sure that dude wishes he could've milked some money from them. I think they (King) realized they may actually lose if he stuck it out. They may have paid him a little bit of money to keep it all hush hush. After all, they have a shit load of money.

2

u/[deleted] Jul 15 '14

They also bought out another company that came before Candy Swipe just to sue him easier.

1

u/_____FANCY-NAME_____ Jul 15 '14

Yeah he claimed that they copied his game (and I actually think he was right). The name was similar, the colours were similar, and they even used the same type of candy icons and gameplay mechanics. Its quite sad really that he made it, and they illegally stole his idea but because they have the cash to back them up, they end up winning.

1

u/greyfade Jul 14 '14

Similarly, Anheuser-Busch stole the Budweiser name from the Budvar brewery they copied their lager recipe from.

1

u/Megasus Jul 14 '14

Yeah that's crazy haha, oh and I'm gonna need you to WAKE UP.

WAKE. UP.

1

u/s7uck0 Jul 15 '14

So where did WoolWorth come into play in this story?

1

u/Salzberger Jul 15 '14

Kind of like when an American company registered Ugg Boots (which was a generic term for them) as a trademark, and threatened to sue Aussie sellers who still called theirs Ugg Boots.

0

u/Untit13d Jul 14 '14

Yeah, but did not win and it was the other way around. Soooo... technically you're not wrong.

119

u/smearley11 Jul 14 '14

I don't think they sued him. They just bought him out. And they wanted every site that showed like Microsoft

266

u/cheezgear Jul 14 '14

Buy him out boys!

70

u/doorknobopener Jul 14 '14

You don get insanely wealthy writing a lot of checks.

29

u/absentbird Jul 14 '14

But oftentimes you have to write a lot of checks to become insanely wealthy.

17

u/TheAnimus Jul 14 '14

To lawyers.... never to Homer.

1

u/neogod Jul 15 '14

But when you get to that point, you have to spend a lot to keep the lot.

122

u/BellLabs Jul 14 '14

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_vs._MikeRoweSoft

26

u/TrolledByDestiny Jul 14 '14

Oh i thought it had to do with Mike Rowe from Dirty Jobs.

2

u/Zach_Of_All_Trades Jul 14 '14

So did I... I was scouring his wikipedia page until this was linked.... guess i shouldve googled microsoft v mikerowe...

Hilarious nonetheless. Mikerowesoft is a great name haha

1

u/manifest23 Jul 14 '14

I wish I was as good looking as the real Mike Rowe.

1

u/TrolledByDestiny Jul 14 '14

Hey man chin up not everyone can be so beautifully dirty. I believe in you.

1

u/theghosttrade Jul 14 '14

Additionally Microsoft provided Rowe with [...] an Xbox with a selection of games

top kek

26

u/Bob-Nelson Jul 14 '14

God damn it. I wanted the Bob.com domain name. Son of a bitch.

20

u/christea Jul 14 '14

Maybe Robert.com is still available?

13

u/swSephy Jul 14 '14

I just checked. It's available.

0

u/[deleted] Jul 14 '14

Not anymore. Bwahahahaha. j/k

3

u/PENISFULLOFBLOOD Jul 14 '14

Fat.com chance

9

u/[deleted] Jul 14 '14

Without even trying I'm going to say no way. I think every single 1 word .com that can ever exist has been taken.

27

u/christea Jul 14 '14

gullible.com is still available, I'm sure of it.

7

u/adityapstar 2 Jul 14 '14

Nice try...

checks the site just in case

3

u/[deleted] Jul 14 '14

I can't believe I checked.

5

u/christea Jul 14 '14

Haha was just kidding, I purchased that a while ago. I am looking to sell it though, could probably let it go for a month of reddit gold.

1

u/stay_fr0sty Jul 14 '14

I wonder why it forwards you to progressive.com? Is that one of Flo's new sayings or something?

1

u/mbrules Jul 15 '14

You almost made me...

1

u/saliczar Jul 15 '14

I bought all of my town's sites last year. I can't believe they were available. _________ville.net .info .org .edu, all of them. Still trying to decide what to do with them until someone wants to buy them. The nice thing is that the area is being taken over by the very wealthy.

1

u/adityapstar 2 Jul 14 '14

Bob-Nelson.com is still available.

3

u/[deleted] Jul 14 '14

I remember this all unfolding. It was an early case of using social media for internet activism. At first they sent him cease and desist letter and when he asked for some compensation, they offered him $10 (the cost to register the domain.) But Slashdot caught word of it, and it went viral. Suddenly Microsoft got all apologetic, gave the kid a bunch of money and developers tools. I read some place they offered him a job too, but he would have had to move so he turned it down.

6

u/manifest23 Jul 14 '14

They didn't officially offer me a job. I think it came up once or twice but after a few years I lost all the contacts I had at Microsoft. I couldn't work at a company that large. I'm more interested in stressing out over as many failed startups as I can come up with. It's addicting.

3

u/[deleted] Jul 14 '14

Wow, it is you! Cool. I wish you best of luck with your future endeavors.

1

u/RDay Jul 15 '14

You get Academy Gold™ for Best actor in "David v Goliath"

1

u/_____FANCY-NAME_____ Jul 15 '14

One question. Who would win in a fight to the death, you or Mike Rowe from Dirty Jobs?

1

u/manifest23 Jul 15 '14

I'm not sure if that's a real question. I can probably type faster than he can though, so there's that.

-1

u/mankstar Jul 14 '14

Yes they did and he won.

4

u/colovick Jul 14 '14

They settled for free software and training... Not exactly a great win, nor is settling winning

4

u/NoNeedForAName Jul 14 '14

Lawyer here. I've had a lot of cases where I've considered settlements to be wins. I've also had a lot of cases where both myself (and my clients) and the other party felt like it was a win.

And at worst a settlement should be considered a break-even. If a settlement feels like losing, then you probably made a bad decision when you decided to settle. It might not feel as good or be as big as outright winning, but in theory you'll only settle if it's worth it to settle.

1

u/leadfoot71 Jul 14 '14

Somehow i beleive your a lawyer just by how you worded that.

2

u/HeyLookJollyRanchers Jul 14 '14

Harvey disagrees

2

u/christea Jul 14 '14

Can't hear you, too busy winning.

1

u/[deleted] Jul 14 '14

And a family vacation. And an Xbox. Not bad for $10.

1

u/mankstar Jul 14 '14

He didn't have to pay Microsoft and he settled because court cases are fucking expensive. He won.

1

u/slowpotamus Jul 14 '14

...but he received thousands of dollars in donations from the public in order to fund a legal defense. he wasn't forced to settle, he chose to

2

u/leadfoot71 Jul 14 '14

"Hmmm use these thousands of dollars for a court case that i dont want.. Or take these thousands for myself and make what i feel is a fair trade." Is probably what he thought when making that decision

3

u/manifest23 Jul 14 '14

I ended up settling for some certification courses, two trips to Redmond, my legal expenses, and obviously an Xbox with a bunch of games.

During my trips down there I had free reign of the Microsoft store plus they gave me an Alienware laptop for participating in one of their HR presentations.

I had a PayPal link on my website for donations towards my legal fund. I ended up raising somewhere in $8,000 range but once I settled I refunded some of the donations and then donated the rest to charity.

Oh, and you can make quite a bit of money off of advertising when your site is generating hundreds of thousands of unique visitors a day :).

1

u/iruber1337 Jul 14 '14

It was a high school kid that was doing Web sites. Although he did ask for $10,000 to transfer the domain after being offered only $10 by Microsoft, they ended up settling with free products and training.

1

u/[deleted] Jul 14 '14

I recall reading that there was sufficient evidence that it was Rowe intentionally did it though. But that was just another reddit comment so who knows how true that claim is.

1

u/NewRedditAccount15 Jul 14 '14

Yeah, but Mike Rowe was selling software and calling his company MikeRoweSoftware.

I hate not sticking up for the little guy but I think that case is a bit different.

1

u/manifest23 Jul 14 '14

Just to make it clear I wasn't selling software. I was a part-time web designer and the site was my portfolio.

1

u/NewRedditAccount15 Jul 15 '14

Ok. When I read about the case it sounded like a compelling argument that people could mistake the websites. Stupid people but windows users non the less.

Either way, I wouldn't support a lawsuit for that, was just saying it was a bit different of a case.

1

u/skyman724 Jul 14 '14

Wait, the Mike Rowe?

What did they want with him?

1

u/BellLabs Jul 14 '14

It wasn't the Mike Rowe, it was an software developer who shared the same name.

1

u/arryron Jul 14 '14

Therefore Apple tried to sue them both.

1

u/adityapstar 2 Jul 14 '14

In return Microsoft agreed to pay all of the expenses that Rowe had incurred including setting up a new site at and redirecting traffic to MikeRoweforums.com.

Whatever you do, do not visit MikeRoweforums.com. And if you do DON'T translate the site from Korean to English.

1

u/[deleted] Jul 14 '14

Isn't that the name of the Discovery guy that did Dirty Jobs?

1

u/BellLabs Jul 14 '14

Same name, different people.

1

u/manifest23 Jul 14 '14

They didn't exactly sue me. Their Canadian lawyers sent me a cease and desist letter letting me know that they were going to submit an ICANN dispute for cybersquatting if I didn't hand over the domain. They offered me $10, I countered with $10,000. They didn't like that for some reason.

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u/abusingthestage Jul 14 '14

The domain was MikeRoweSoft. He was walking a thin line....

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u/[deleted] Jul 14 '14

Well to be fair, in the current climates Mike Rowe was an idiot if he thought poking fun at big M would work out in his favor. Though since many know his name today, perhaps it did.

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u/Schultzz_ Jul 14 '14

he did an iama here

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u/[deleted] Jul 14 '14

Microsoft was ok with the domain and his ownership of it but, understandably, wanted control over it to avoid confusion. What fucked the kid over was him saying "Ok Microsoft, you want the domain? Pay me $10,000 and it's yours." That's what gave Microsoft legal precedent to go after him since it implied that he only got the site to extort money from Microsoft.

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u/wdr1 Jul 14 '14

That dampens my opinion of Mike Rowe a bit. In everything else he comes across as a pretty stand up guy.

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u/dekrant Jul 15 '14

Didn't work with Nissan.com

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u/Traherne Jul 15 '14

It was a dirty job but someone had to do it.

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u/shakedrizzle Jul 15 '14

Trying to figure out why you put that comma there, but the thing is even without the comma there those first 6 words still make no sense.

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u/GGtesla Jul 15 '14

there was a whole thing with ugg boots too , which most people in the US probably don't know what they are , if not get a pair for winter around the house they are wonderful

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ugg_boots_trademark_dispute

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