On July 22 2004 the Daily Telegraph ran a small article about this website in their "City Diary" column. They indicated that this site "has all the usual moans that other consumer protest sites have, but I have to admit he's made quite a professional job of it."
They explained, "I call the bank to see what it thinks of Walsh's efforts and initially a spokesman finds it quite funny. Her tone changes when she calls back, however, adding: 'We think this is defamatory to Coutts and we're consulting our lawyers to see what our next step will be.'"
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| Censorship |
As a result of the Telegraph article, this site received about 2,100 visitors on July 22. And then, in the mid-afternoon and without warning, the site went dead.
Shortly thereafter I received an e-mail message from Eric in Hong Kong. Eric sells the great guestbook software that we use on the site, and he'd arranged hosting with a company that he uses. Eric wrote:
I have been contacted by my data center and network provider that the site couttssucks.com needs to be removed from server, it is in trademark violation and coutts has threatened suit against the NOC, me and you.
Please understand that I'm forced to temporary disable this account or they'll take off the whole server.
I'm very sorry and seriously thinking of a best solution on this case. Any solution you propose will be acceptable.
Regards,
Eric
My apologies for this problem. I've not seen the letter or e-mail message that Eric's network provider received: I've asked Eric to please get a copy for me.
I approached "Crazy Dave," the President of
Parcom. They host another one of our websites (completely unrelated to this one), and Dave said, "
In America there is freedom of speech as you know - I host all sorts of sites here. I mean the only thing I don't want to host are illegal activity sites (ya know, drug dealers, racist sites, etc...) Sites that have an 'opinion' are everywhere."
This site was back up with somewhat limited service by early Saturday morning, after the change in name servers propagated throughout the internet. The kind folks at Interactive Tools --- this site uses their excellent content management software, Article Manager --- repaired some problems that were caused by moving, quickly, from one host to another. The guestbook software was up and running again by Tuesday, July 27.
The Telegraph kindly did a follow-up article on July 24 explaining about the site being down. They said, "He says the web host claimed the site was in trademark violation and needed to be removed from the server. Undaunted, he says: "I've found a less timid hosting company and the site should be back up later today." He's also registered poshbritishbanksucks.com for more of the same."
I note that The Royal Bank of Scotland (the parent of Coutts) has now registered couttsucks.com (one "s") as well as couttssucks.org, couttssucks.info, couttssucks.net, couttssucks.biz --- and who knows what else. Those sites are not affiliated with this site, and, as before, this site is not affiliated with Coutts or endorsed by it in any way.
I have been very careful not to include the Coutts logo on this site, and have frequently mentioned that this site is not affiliated with Coutts --- even in the meta tags. My experiences with Coutts, as documented on this site, are real, and I have the supporting documentation.
I guess I knew that Coutts wouldn't be pleased with this site. Heck, I wouldn't be happy if they did a craigsucks.com website. (Just checked: they can't. That domain name is owned by someone named Craig Newmark.) But I have not been defamatory: my personal opinion is that couttssucks. And one of the wondeful things about the internet is that it affords an inexpensive means of expressing one's opinion.
So this site is back. Thanks for bearing with us.
The www.paypalsucks.com website has an excellent discussion on this issue. Their attorneys point out, "your allegation that the domain names “NoPayPal.com” and “PayPalSucks.com” infringe your client’s marks fails as well. My client is engaging in consumer criticism, and no reasonably prudent user of the Internet would believe that these websites are sponsored by your client. See Bally, 29 F. Supp. 2d at 1165 n.2; see also, e.g., Lucent Technologies, Inc. v. Lucentsucks.com, 95 F. Supp. 2d 528 (E.D. Va. 2000) dismissing cybersquatting complaint against operator of lucentsucks.com); Lockheed Martin Corp. v. Parisi, WIPO Case No. D2000-1015 (2001) (refusing to transfer the domain names lockheedsucks.com and lockheedmartinsucks.com); Walmart Stores, Inc. v. walmartcanadasucks.com, WIPO Case No. D2000-1104 (2000) (same, walmartcanadasucks.com). This is not a situation where a trademark was incorporated into a domain name in bad faith. See Caixa d”Estavis y Pensions de Barcelona v. Namezero.com, WIPO Case No. D2001-0360 (2001) (distinguishing criticism sites from those “where the main aim of Respondents was selling their domain names for money”)."
