Précis #3

Google as "Big Brother."

The article begins by declaring that there are four major competitors in the "search engine world." One of the four, Yahoo said, "Peace out!" in February of 2004 when they reportedly dropped Google from their "belt" of other search engines including Overture, Alltheweb, AltaVista, and Inktomi. However, after one year Yahoo has shown that they are pretty much on track with Google when it comes to results. Also, the article claims that there is only a 20% overlap when it comes to the results of Google and Yahoo, after the same search.

The next part of the article talks about Microsoft and their recent effort to develop a search engine of their own, after being stuck in between Yahoo's Inktomi and the advertising in Overture. The article speculates that Microsoft's search engine may be able to overthrow the other powerhouses if they "do deep crawls" and keep their user interface "clean." All that being said, we are left with Yahoo, Google, Microsoft, and Teoma, also known as AskJeeves. The article says to keep an eye out for AskJeeves as they are looking into expanding their crawl.

Now, to the juicy stuff.

Indisputably, Google is the "alpha dog." They account for 75% of external referrals for most of the websites of the net. So why try to out-do the top dog? The author of the article reports that if we are lucky, one of the other engines from the "major four" will start to offer competition to Google. But there are many different disputes.

One is a battle of advertising space and money. Google used to be ad-free but today up to half of each screen belongs to advertisements. It seems everyone is trying to jump on the "Google Train." It's also a battle of who will have the most influence when it comes to the huge amounts of user data collected by Google. Usually these privacy disputes revolve around consumer protection, but since September 11, 2001 there is a new "bad guy" to fight against-- the government. This "privacy struggle" means that Google will need to figure out how they will treat the data they collect.

Another battle being fought is the PageRank problem between Google and Google Watch. This is due to Google ranking the popularity of web pages before the quality of them. The article starts to wind down by saying, "We don't think Google is evil." Phew. The article believes Google is a fork in the road, and decisions need to be made.

As a student, I constantly use the World Wide Web for miscellaneous searches. Although I am now reluctant to admit that Google is almost always my first choice search engine, it is indeed true. I like the interface and I like the results, as do many people across the world. This is perhaps why is has been so successful. However, I do agree that Google is a "privacy time bomb." It is because of the Patriot Act, the government can tap into any phone call, so if the right people are not elected it is only a matter of time before what we search for will be traced and used against us by people that should never have access to this kind of information.

Précis #2

Domain Name Disputes.

In the first article by Ivan Hoffman, the term "bad faith" is introduced. Ivan tells the readers that ICANN uses the term "bad faith" when any of these four things happen:

1. when a domain is purchased for the purpose of selling, renting, or transferring it to a party who owns a registered trademark or to a trademark's competitor.

2. when a domain is registered to prevent the owner of a registered trademark from protecting that trademark.

3. using a domain name for disrupting a competitors business.

4. purposely trying to draw visitors to the web site of the domain by creating confusion between the domain and the trademark.

In Ivan then tell us that bad faith is very crucial when it comes to each claim. Also, the owner of the domain has the right to fight back against any accusations of bad faith.

The next section deals with how claims are presented. First the trademark can file a civil action seeking injunctive relief; this stops the domain from use. Second, the dispute is heard by authorized arbitration bodies After this has happened, the claim would go "on hold." This changed in 2000 so now the domain will be cancelled but only after its received a written authorization from the domain name owner, and order fro the court, and a decision by the ICANN panel.

The update to this article talks about the use of celebrities names in domains. The first case is "juliaroberts.com." The article talks about the issues the UDRP had to face. They were:

1. is the domain identical to the actress's name?

2. did the actress have the rights for this domain?

3. does the domain owner have any legit rights to this domain?

4. is the domain being used in "bad faith?"

Obviously, JULIAROBERTS.com was spelled out right. She did not have trademark rights for her name, but "secondary rights." When it all boiled down, the council concluded that she did have trademark rights to her name. Also, they concluded that the domain was obtained in bad faith and they ordered the domain transferred to her. The Jimi Hendrix case was very similar.

The second article is about a case in VA. A man named Jerry Falwell wants to own the domains containing his name as the current owner is using them for some ridiculous political postings. The court then ruled that they did not have jurisdiction on the this case because it does not address a VA audience (where Jerry Falwell is from). It addresses a national audience.

I suppose I agree with the final decision made but it surely is unfortunate on Jerry Falwell's case that his name can represented in such a way he does not agree with. However, it is JUST a website, and most people know that if they type in "theirname.com" something that has nothing to do with them will come up. So personally, I think Jerry is wasting a lot of time and money.