You can spend a cazillion dollars promoting your logo, your brand and your trade name and then do unimaginable damage through one goofy act. Take Dell Computers who seem to have forgotten that it’s better people get all warm-n-fuzzy at the mention of your company name, rather than the negative vibe that’s likely to be created with stories like this. Seems the computer giant has decided that it’s not too happy with Paul Dell, a Spain-based designer who plies his trade through his domain DellWebSites.com, a site that Paul has owned since April 2001. So unhappy, in fact, that the computer giant has slapped the other Dell with a massive lawsuit, claiming (among other things) that Paul ripped them off by buying the name, and hoovering their name for his own end. According the story – covered in The UK Register and on Paul’s own web site:
Dell America seeks 100 000 Euro (USD 120,000.00 approx) in damages to Dell America, 50 000 Euro (USD 60,000.00 approx) to Dell France and ordering me to pay each Dell Company 40 000 Euro (USD 48,000.00 approx) and 500 Euro (USD 600.00 approx) for every presence of the word Dell on his site.
As reported in an earlier article in The Register:
Dell’s lawyers – old hands at this sort of thing – the owner of Dellwebsites.com is committing “an act of parasitism” and “creating a risk of confusion” between himself and the online PC vendor Dell. It wants the domain signed over to it, at the owner’s cost. The theory runs that as soon as someone sees or hears of www.dellwebsites.com, they immediately think “oh that lovely company that sells cheap but well-built PCs has got into web design”. They are then overwhelmed with revulsion when they find out it’s nothing to do with Dell the PC maker.
Seems a little petty, especially since Dell Computers are risking the PR backlash that generally follows these ‘David vs. Goliath’ battles. Bloggers and forums have banded together to get the news out, while Paul is asking for donations to help with his rapidly mounting legal costs. You can also let your opinions be known be e-mailing/writing Michael Dell, the chairman of the board for Dell Computers via michael_dell@dell.com. Worst case of PR that I’ve seen since Dell fired the “dude, you’re getting a Dell” dude.
And that ends today’s public service announcement…
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