Microsoft: We took MikeRoweSoft too seriously
It is probably a very trivial issue for Microsoft, and I wouldn't be surprised if they regret getting involved with it. Microsoft may be prepared to pay him some money to make this go away, because this is not the kind of publicity that Microsoft wants to attract.
- Struan Robertson
So, what do a 17-year-old Canadian boy with a part-time web design business and the world's largest software company have in common? Well, nothing until now, but MikeRowSoft just got millions of dollars in free advertsing because the Death Star decided to play the heavy. This is a case of ANY publicity being good publicity- unless, of course, you happen to be the common sense-challenged Microsoft Corporation.
Microsoft says it may have been overaggressive in threatening Web entrepreneur Mike Rowe over the name of his Web site, Mikerowesoft.com.
Rowe, a 17-year-old student from Vancouver, British Columbia, registered Mikerowesoft.com to front his part-time Web site design business in August 2003. Three months later, he received an e-mail from Microsoft's lawyers, asking him to transfer the domain name to Microsoft. They offered to pay him a "settlement" of $10, which is the cost of his original registration fee.
However, after the case received widespread coverage on the Internet, Microsoft acknowledged that it may have taken things too far and promised to treat Rowe fairly. A representative of the software company told ZDNet UK: "We appreciate that Mike Rowe is a young entrepreneur who came up with a creative domain name. We take our trademark seriously, but maybe a little too seriously in this case."
Gee? You think?? DUH....
I'd like to know what possible threat a 17-year-old boy could pose to a multi-billion dollar software behemoth. Thanks to the (apparently not so) brilliant but heavy-handed legal minds employed by Bill Gates, Mike Rowe will enjoy his 15 minutes and then some. I hope the kid makes a freakin' fortune off of this ridiculous scam. He deserves it.
