THE PERRYSBURG ADDRESS

The Perrysburg address

The IPKat got wind of this item from The Age from his friend Charlotte Presse (CPA). It relates the sad tale of a Perrysburg, Ohio corporation, Universal Tube & Rollform Equipment Corporation, that has had to abandon its web address www.utube.com after getting swamped by lazy or illiterate people browsing in search of YouTube. Universal has filed a lawsuit before a US District Court, asking for injunctive relief or the cost of relocating to a new domain name. Universal, with just 17 employees, got 68 million hits on its site in August, making it one of the most popular manufacturing websites.

The IPKat is puzzled. Can a cause of action really exist against a legitimate trader simply because its customers can't be bothered to spell its name correctly? Merpel says, it's all the fault of those naughty people who created a new form of spelling for SMS messages.

The Utube blog (an unofficial blog on YouTube and the video file sharing industry) here
Utube allegedly refuses a $1 million offer from YouTube here
U-tube manometer here
Translate YouTube into Utube here