Week 4 Case Study

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Feb 20, 2024

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Running Head: WEEK 4 CASE STUDY 1 Week 4 Case Study Mason Green Wilmington University PHI 314 Mr. Pond 2/4/2024

Running Head: WEEK 4 CASE STUDY 2 Week 4 Case Study Cybersquatting cases have been flying under the radar for quite some time. Just in 2022, there have been over 5,000 cases that deal with cybersquatting. Unfortunately, this happens too much and continues to happen. Luckily, these people can be brought to court for this issue. One instance is about how Mike Rowe has been accused of cybersquatting by Microsoft due to his domain of “MikeRoweSoft”. This infringement happened because of how close it sounded to the famous Microsoft company. Next, to define which kind of cybersquatting mikerowesoft.com is typosquatting. Although the name of the website is far off from Microsoft, it was still the act of possible brandjacking even in an underwhelming way. Mike Rowe was unaware of the legal side of this project he had made when he was in 12 th grade at the time and only thought it would be funny to add “soft” to the end of it. Typosquatting can be punishable by fines or other court orders that were put into place. An article explains how “Typosquatting may carry a significant punishment under the ACPA. The act provides victims with a right to statutory damages "not less than $1,000 and not more than $100,000 per domain name" in order to provide restitution of profit to the legitimate domain holder.”(Cornell Law School, 2021). This means that since it was going against the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act (ACPA), it is punishable by fines in court. In summary of the case, Microsoft v. MikeRoweSoft ended in Microsoft acquiring mikerowesoft.com. In the beginning, it started with Microsoft giving him $10 for it but Mike Rowe was furious about this deal and wanted to profit by asking for $10,000 for the domain. After this, a 25-page cease and desist letter caused the teenager to look out to the press for assistance in this debate. So, although his domain was taken, he got an Xbox, paid for a

Running Head: WEEK 4 CASE STUDY 3 Microsoft certification course, games, and even promised to help set up his new website which is now called MikerRoweForums.com. A statement from Microsoft explains how “they admitted to taking their trademark maybe a little too seriously, and extended a settlement offer to Rowe.”(Priceonomics, 2014). Lastly, people wonder if this was the right outcome or if it was technically a violation of First Amendment rights. One article puts this question in a better light by mentioning “Under U.S. law, if you let one potential infringement slide you lose the ability to defend against any.”(Goodwins, 2004). He means that if they didn’t do this action, it would be seen as an exception which is very unprofessional in Microsoft’s eyes. Since it violated ACPA, they had to do this because realistically they’d do it to everyone else who does any sort of cybersquatting. Also, if it wasn’t a violation of ACPA and was a violation of the First Amendment, Mike Rowe would’ve won while also keeping his website. In conclusion, Microsoft v. MikeRoweSoft went the correct way but it’s unfortunate to see a younger person get in legal trouble like Mike Rowe was. The stakeholders that are affected by anticybersquatting legislation are organizations, companies, or just any consumer that has their significant trademark or in this case power over their domain name. After all, it was all meant to keep promoting electronic commerce and this act protects companies from people who want to take their consumers the wrong way. Whether it be the producer of the company protected by it or the consumer buying into it, there shouldn’t be any reason why anyone would be against ACPA. As mentioned, there are 5,000 cases in just one year, and that number could be a lot higher if companies weren’t protected.

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Running Head: WEEK 4 CASE STUDY 4 References Cornell Law School. (2021, September). Typosquatting . Legal Information Institute. https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/typosquatting#:~:text=Typosquatting%20may%20carry %20a%20significant,to%20the%20legitimate%20domain%20holder . Demcak, I. (2021, January). Microsoft versus Mikerowesoft . TramaTM. https://www.tramatm.com/blog/category/software/microsoft-versus-mikerowesoft Goodwins, R. (2004, January 20). Microsoft stuck with Mikerowesoft Mess . ZDNET. https://www.zdnet.com/article/microsoft-stuck-with-mikerowesoft-mess/ Microsoft vs. MikeRoweSoft . Priceonomics. (2014, January 21). https://priceonomics.com/microsoft-vs-mikerowesoft/ Petrosyan, A. (2022, December 13). Cybersquatting: Most domain name dispute filings 2022 . Statista. https://www.statista.com/statistics/416159/domain-name-cases-filings-wipo/ Samson, M. (2005, September 9). Internet library of law and court decisions . The Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act. http://www.internetlibrary.com/publications/anticybsquattSamson9-05_art.cfm

Week 4 Case Study

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