It’s just sad that we have to resort to using the trademark to weed them out

More than anything else, it’s sad because it hurts Automattic’s own claim on the trademark, and by extension its value as a company asset. If these people were to challenge Automattic’s position, Automattic’s failure to object to anyone else using the name would seriously damage their case. A position based on personal dislike for selected sites, rather than on the law, is not going to hold up terribly well in court.

Markku, I’d rather not give these guys any more publicity, they’re obviously trying to leverage this into more exposure for their products, and some blogs are playing right into their hands.

That’s a good point, Matt. Though we’re borthering on what is legal and what is not, I agree that the domains you mentioned are indeed spammy. It’s just sad that we have to resort to using the trademark to weed them out, though I’m sure your lawyers investigated other possible ways of catching these bastards without alienating the innocent. I trust you guys to always know the right thing to do, and I sure do hope no innocent weblogs and publishers are inadvertently affected by these actions.

As with so many other comments you’ve made, you’re just making statements without asking questions. I have the affiliate link because I rebate back my commission to the person that buys through my site. I don’t make a penny off of that link. Again, open mouth…insert foot…you’re taking this “assumptions without facts” thing to a whole new level.

@ John – I didn’t think for one moment that these sites were targeted for being Asian! I was only trying to point out how poorly thought out this whole thing is. When making legal-type business decisions, one would think you’d take half a second and think of the legal ramifications of the action about to be taken.

Searching Google for “wordpress” gives me over 200 million results. Many of those could be infringers. Since you know those pages exist, I believe that you need to police them to defend your trademark.

I’m all in favor of trademarks, copyrights, and intellectual property rights. I also think that the owners of such have every right to defend them. I’m just boggled at the number of law clerks you’d have to hire just to keep up with just the growth of web pages that mention “wordpress,” never mind policing the 200 million+ existing pages to see if each one falls under fair use or if it’s infringing.

I would think that the best way to deal with it would be to have the lawyers come up with a blanket statement that covers everyone who uses the term, whether they’re a commercial site, an open source project, a print magazine, or anything else. I don’t even know if you can do that, but it’s got to be better than trying to do selective enforcement for the sites you don’t like today.

How bout the web 2.0 community take a deep breath and KEEP IT REAL.
Affiliate marketing isn’t the bane of the internet nor all things holy..err ..open source.
Money is NOT the root of all evil and if it is, can the web techno-geeks start with the main spam-causing culprit – the hallowed G.

The problem is, when the community as a whole “frowns” upon anyone trying to make any money, they handcuff themselves when it’s time to pay their own bills.

It’s good to keep a moderate approach about such things and not go off on “anti-affiliate-money-making-whatever” tangents because one day, they will want to GET PAID and feed their kids, grow their business, etc.

Lol really it’s ok web 2.0 blogging, social-bookmarking, open-sourcers.
One can make money and not become evil. Try it, you might like it.

If theyre serious about protecting their intellectual property, they can’t afford to pick and choose their targets in that way, and they certainly can’t afford to make it look like they’re merely using trademark violation as a pretext for shutting down sites they don’t like. Target everyone equally, and the ‘is it because I is Asian / an affiliate marketer/ a support guru / competition for you’ argument is dead in the water because it’s obvious the only problem is with the use of the trademark. I am not, of course, a lawyer, but even I can see that going after some sites and not others leaves a hole in your case a mile wide.

From what I’ve read in some of your posts, you seem to have something against affiliate programs and the like.

That would be the zeal of the convert. Matt got his fingers badly burned when he tried to monetise wordpress.org so it’s only natural for him to be extremely suspicious of anything that looks like profiteering.

You should talk to your trademark lawyer to see if your selective defense of your trademark is a good idea. I believe that you must protect it in all instances, and failing to do so may result in forfeiture of the trademark. I may be wrong, though. Check with your lawyer. If you do have to defend it in all instances, it’s going to be anywhere that your trademark is used, not just domain names. If someone mentions your trademark on a web site, even if it’s not in the domain name, you need to check it out.

Also check with your lawyer about making statements that can be interpreted as you speaking for your corporation. Given the current political climate in America, I would not have made your comments about affiliate marketing in the same post that talks about your attempts to shut down a couple of merchants who offer affiliate programs. Too much risk of some loon trying to make a political name for themselves by raising a ruckus about “interfering with interstate commerce” or some such.