For decades now, consumers have been lured into a sour deal: pay for a relatively inexpensive printer, then spend a lifetime paying an arm and a leg for viciously overpriced printer cartridges. As most have learned first-hand, any attempt to disrupt this obnoxious paradigm via third-party printer cartridges has been met with a swift DRM roundhouse kick to the solar plexus. In fact if there’s an area where the printer industry actually innovates, it’s most frequently in finding new, creative and obnoxious methods of preventing cartridge competition.
Unfortunately for Canon, the global chip shortage has temporarily put a kink in the company’s plan to annoy regular customers. The shortage means the company hasn’t been able to buy enough chips used to determine whether a printer cartridge is “genuine” or “authorized,” and therefore has had to start selling cartridges without DRM, and issue guidance helping users do an end around for the company’s own obnoxious DRM warnings:
? Semiconductor shortage leads to Canon selling toner cartridges without chips which usually identify them as genuine, so Canon now instructs customers on how to override the warnings for using "counterfeit" cartridges https://t.co/rqcmXckPFp
— Nils Adermann (@naderman) January 7, 2022
The company’s various international websites warn users that even “official” Canon ink cartridges could be seen as “counterfeit” across a range of printer products lines (19 devices in total) because they can no longer embed the chips needed for DRM:
“The role the chip plays in the toner cartridges is to communicate information, this includes toner level and to confirm that the toner is a genuine Canon product.”
Canon was just sued last October for disabling all the functions in their multifunction printers if the device’s cartridges ran out of ink (and failing to adequately disclose that to consumers). Basically, Canon did the math and realized that they’d boost their profit margins if they forced millions of customers to buy new printer cartridges — even if they were only using the device to scan. That this might annoy, inconvenience, or drive up costs for its customers, or sour the public on the brand apparently never entered into the company’s thinking.
Of course, none of this would be a problem if the company hadn’t embraced annoying, artificial limitations in a bid to hamper competition and drive up costs in the first place, but it’s obviously unlikely Canon will learn much of anything from the experience.
Filed Under: anti-circumvention, chip shortage, copyright, dmca 1201, drm, printers Companies: canon
For more than a decade now, computer printer manufacturers have been engaged in an endless quest called: “let’s be as annoying as humanly possible.” That quest, driven by a desire to monopolize and boost the sale of their own printer cartridges, has resulted in all manner of obnoxious DRM and other restrictions designed to make using cheaper, third-party printing cartridges a monumental headache. Often, software or firmware updates have been designed to intentionally grind printing to a halt if you try to use these alternative options.
Beyond that, there are other things printer manufacturers do that make even less sense if a happy customer is the end goal. Take for example Canon’s history of disabling the scanning and faxing functionality on some printer models if the printer itself runs out of ink. It’s a policy designed to speed up the rate at which users buy expensive cartridges (god forbid you go a few months just scanning things without adequate levels of magenta), but it’s exemplary of the outright hostility that plagues the sector.
And now Canon is facing a $5 million lawsuit (pdf) for its behavior. The lawsuit, filed in the District Court for the Eastern District of New York (first spotted by Bleeping Computer) claims Canon fails to adequately disclose the restrictions to consumers:
“Canon does not represent or warn consumers that ink is a necessary component in order to scan or fax documents. As a result, consumers are forced to incur unexpected and unnecessary burden and expense in the form of ink purchases or in the alternative be unable to scan or fax documents using the so-called all-in-one device. Canon knew, or should have known, that its representations and advertisements regarding the All-in-One Printers were false and misleading, and that they failed to disclose material information.”
There’s no technical reason for such restrictions as they pertain to scanning and faxing. But like most restrictions of this type, when consumers complain, they’re (falsely) informed it’s a product safety issue of some nebulous kind. See, for example, this Canon customer service response to one user who complained he could no longer scan when he ran out of ink (notice how he doesn’t answer the actual question and keeps the focus on printing):
“These precautions are in place to prevent damage to the printer from occurring if printing with no ink is attempted. The printer uses the ink to cool the printhead during the printing process. If no ink is present, the printhead could be damaged or the unit would require service.”
Again, being a misleading jackass to goose printer cartridge sales is not a cogent business strategy. And the fact this kind of stuff just keeps happening decade after decade showcases not only the ineffectiveness of class actions as a meaningful behavior shifting tool (of course binding arbitration has become arguably worse), but the overall fecklessness of U.S. regulators who generally lack the resources to properly police dodgy behavior at the scale it happens in the U.S.
Filed Under: business models, ink, printer, scanner, scanning Companies: canon
Everyone likes buying stuff with a bunch of built-in restrictions, right? The things we “own” often remain the property of the manufacturers, at least in part. That’s the trade-off we never asked for — one pushed on us by everyone from movie studios to makers of high-end cat litter boxes and coffee brewers. DRM prevents backup copies. Proprietary packets brick functions until manufacturer-approved refills are in place.
Here’s another bit of ridiculousness, via Techdirt reader techflaws. German news outlet c’t Magazin is reporting that Xerox printers are going further than the normal restrictions we’ve become accustomed to. For years, printer companies have made sure users’ printers won’t run without every single slot being filled with approved cartridges. This includes such stupidity as disabling every function (including non-ink-related functions like scanning) in all-in-one printers until the printer is fed.
Xerox is going further. Not only do you need to refill the ink, but you have to fill it with local ink. techflaws paraphrases the paywalled, German-language article.
Xerox uses region coding on their toner catridges AND locks the printer to the first type used. So if you use an NA (North America) catridge you can’t use the cheaper DMO (Eastern Europe) anymore. The printer’s display does NOT show this, nor does the hotline know about it. When c’t reached out to Xerox, the marketing drone claimed, this was done to serve the customer better, I kid you not.
Ah, the old “serve the customer better by limiting his/her options,” as seen everywhere DRM/DRM-esque restrictions are applied.
But while c’t Magazin has only recently stumbled across this issue of region-locked ink cartridges, it’s by no means a new issue. Techflaws also points to a 2011 forum post by a user who ran into this problem with his Xerox printer.
I have seen hundreds of posts regarding the rejection of ink based on the location of purchase. I asume that Xerox does this to prevent the purchase of ink not manufactured by them. However – forcing a client to pay for a service for a snippet that needs to be installed in order to use the printer is ABSURD.
I changed from HP to Xerox because I thought it was a trusted name. I have instead learned that in the process of trying to protect against counterfeit – it is the paying customer that will get a non-functioning printer – with no help unless you are willing to pay for the printer to work as it should have to begin with.
So, it appears that if you attempt to forcefeed a Xerox printer not-from-around-here ink, it will potentially brick the device. At that point, you’re forced to ask for a Xerox rep to drop by and unlock your purchased printer for you. Here’s another confirmation of Xerox’s “locals only” ink limitations.
As I live in the UK my ink blocks are for the European market. If I purchase from ebay, ink blocks for the USA or Asian market and insert them into my printer, the printer will stop with a contact your engineer code on the LCD. The printer is now unusable.
The rate charged to the person in the forum post quoted above was $596/hour. There’s no missing decimal point there. Sure, it’s only 10 minutes of work, but it’s $60 being shelled out by a paying customer just so his printer will go back to printing. The only thing actually “broken” is Xerox’s business model.
This person notes they switched from HP to Xerox because the latter was supposedly more trustworthy. Apparently not. Printers aren’t a business. They’re a racket. HP is no better than Xerox. It too will lock your printer to a certain region to ensure you receive only the best customer service purchase only most profitable ink cartridges.
If dates are anything to go by, HP likely pioneered the bullshit that is region-locked ink. This is from a 2005 Slashdot post. (The internal link to the Wall Street Journal is dead, so it has been omitted.)
Looks like the printer cartridge manufacturers will be borrowing techniques from Hollywood. HP introduced region coding for some of the newest printers sold in Europe. HP’s US location and US dollar sliding lead to the situation, where cartridge prices in Europe are significantly higher than those in the States. In the Wall Street Journal article HP representative in Europe claims the company doesn’t make any money off regional coding for cartridges, and that consumers will win once the US dollar rises over Euro.
Unbelievably, the rep says customers will “win” if an aspect HP can’t control (currency exchange rates) happens to shift in the customers’ favor. Why not just say consumers will be better off if those scratch tickets are winners? Or if the housing market rebounds and brings the residence housing the HP printer back into the black?
How much have consumers “won” since 2005?
In January of 2005 (when the post appeared at Slashdot), the exchange rate was 1.312 ($$ to Euros). A decade later, the exchange rate is 1.162. The dollar has gotten stronger, but this change is unlikely to have any appreciable effect on the price of “European” ink (wtf even is that, HP, Xerox, et al — ink is ink). Thanks for the investment tip, HP PR.
Nearly every major printer manufacturer is in on the scam. HP saw an opportunity to increase incremental sales and staked out this territory in 2004. This brave new world of customer-screwing was followed by Lexmark, Canon, Epson and Xerox — none of which saw anything wrong with illogically restricting ink cartridges to certain regions.
Region coding for DVDs and videogames makes a certain amount of sense, provided you’re willing to make a small logic buy-in on windowed releases. But ink? It’s not like Australians need to wait six weeks for HP to cut loose ink cartridges so as not to sabotage the US release. The only reason to do this is to tie paying customers into the most expensive ink and toner. This lock-in is cemented by many printers’ refusal to recognize third-party replacement cartridges and/or allow refills of existing manufacturer cartridges.
The excuses made for this mercenary behavior would be hilarious if they weren’t so transparently dismissive of customers. Every flowery ode to customers’ best interests by PR flacks boils down to nothing more than, “Fuck ’em. It’s not like they have a choice.”
Filed Under: drm, ink cartridges, region coding, toner Companies: canon, epson, hp, lexmark, xerox
Innovative Technologies, LLC of Austin, Texas doesn’t make any products or even have its own website. What it does have, however, is a handful of weaponized patents its parent company, Acacia, acquired from “we’re not a patent troll” Rambus. It’s using a handful of display-related patents to sue anyone who utilizes an integrated LCD screen. Its latest targets are cell phone distributors like Verizon, AT&T and Apple, but other lawsuits have also been filed against auto manufacturers (Volkswagen, Mercedes-Benz, Mazda), camera companies (Canon, Nikon) and GPS suppliers (TomTom, Garmin).
Innovative Technologies calls this address in Austin, Texas “home:”
1701 DIRECTORS BLVD STE 300 AUSTIN TX 78744-1044
The offices at Southpark One in Austin must be incredibly large, seeing as the same address also houses a number of other Acacia-owned subsidiaries, like Database Sync Solutions LLC, Brilliant Optical Solutions LLC, ChipSys Integrations LLC, Cellular Communications Equipment LLC, Media Recording Solutions LLC, Lifeshield Sciences LLC, RFID-Rx LLC, Promethean Insulation Technology LLC, and Progressive Semiconductor Solutions LLC.
Of course, when your only “employees” are outside law firms, you don’t really need a big office. All you need is a business registration that will give you access to a favorable court system.
IDT is suing these companies for violating its patents on “light emitting panel assemblies.” The recent case filed against Apple is actually its second. The first ended with what appeared to be a settlement agreement (and dismissed without prejudice), but that must not have panned out as IDT filed its second lawsuit against the cell phone/tablet maker two months after its original dismissal, this time asking for nearly $6 billion in “accrued royalties.”
IDT currently has 34 cases in litigation. In addition to the premature dismissal above, it has already secured a licensing agreement from Garmin. But that’s it. Not a very productive set of weaponized patents, but a list of current litigation obviously doesn’t include anyone who agreed to pay a licensing fee as the result of lawsuit threats. This low “conversion rate” probably doesn’t matter much to Acacia, the company sitting on top of a pile of patents and LLCs that exist in name only.
Tracing the patents back from IDT to Acacia to Rambus, it’s immediately clear that no one along this supply chain has ever produced a product utilizing these patents, but that’s not going to stop all of these entities from attempting to profit from the products of others. And yet, Acacia still claims it’s a vital part of the innovation process.
According to its website, the company is an intermediary in the patent market and “facilitates efficiency and delivers monetary rewards to the patent owner.” Acacia boasts that it has generated more than $1 billion in revenue to date and has returned more than $455 million to its patent partners.
Marvin Key of Acacia says his company isn’t a patent troll and claims that it’s business model isn’t predicated on “frivolous” lawsuits.
“The implication in almost everything you read is that there is nothing positive at all about licensing patents,” Key said. “The implication is when someone is sued, whether a small or big company, that every single one of those cases is frivolous, abusive and without merit. And that’s simply untrue.”
But the legal history of the company says otherwise. Here’s its current “portfolio” of holding companies, along with the number of lawsuits filed.
3D DESIGN SOLUTIONS LLC – 1 3DEGREES LLC – 0 ARG MEDICAL SOLUTIONS LLC – 0 ACCUHALE LLC – 1 ADAPTIX, INC. – 64 ADJUSTACAM LLC – 2 ADVANCED PROCESSOR TECHNOLOGIES LLC – 12 AMERICAN VEHICULAR SCIENCES LLC – 35 AUTO-DIMENSIONS LLC – 6 AUTOMATED FACILITIES MANAGEMENT CORPORATION – 13 BEVERAGE DISPENSING SOLUTIONS LLC – 3 BODY SCIENCE LLC – 17 BOLT MRI TECHNOLOGIES LLC – 1 BONUTTI SKELETAL INNOVATIONS LLC – 11 BRANDYWINE COMMUNICATIONS TECHNOLOGIES LLC – 138 BRILLIANT OPTICAL SOLUTIONS LLC – 11 CELL AND NETWORK SELECTION LLC – 5 CELLULAR COMMUNICATIONS EQUIPMENT LLC – 12 CHALUMEAU POWER SYSTEMS LLC – 4 COMPUTER SOFTWARE PROTECTION LLC – 6 CONVERGENT MEDIA SOLUTIONS LLC – 0 DRAM MEMORY TECHNOLOGIES LLC – 3 DRAM MEMTECH LLC – 0 DATA ENGINE TECHNOLOGIES LLC – 7 DATABASE SYNC SOLUTIONS LLC – 1 DYNAMIC 3D GEOSOLUTIONS LLC – 6 DYNAMIC TRANSMISSION TECHNOLOGIES LLC – 4 ENDOTACH LLC – 7 EVM SYSTEMS LLC – 2 EXPRESS CARD SYSTEMS LLC – 18 GT GAMING LLC – 0 IN-DEPTH TEST LLC – 0 INDUSTRIAL PRINT TECHNOLOGIES LLC – 2 INNOVATIVE DISPLAY TECHNOLOGIES LLC – 37 INTERCARRIER COMMUNICATIONS LLC – 16 LABYRINTH OPTICAL TECHNOLOGIES LLC – 6 LAMBDA OPTICAL SOLUTIONS LLC – 1 LIFEPORT SCIENCES LLC – 6 LIFESCREEN SCIENCES LLC – 7 LIFESHIELD SCIENCES LLC – 0 LIGHT TRANSFORMATION TECHNOLOGIES LLC – 5 MOBILE ENHANCEMENT SOLUTIONS LLC – 4 NAVATUNE LLC – 0 NUCLEIC ACID PURIFICATION TECHNOLOGIES LLC – 0 O.S. SECURITY LLC – 6 ONLINE NEWS LINK LLC – 17 OPTIMUM CONTENT PROTECTION LLC – 1 PANALOGIN LLC – 0 PARKING SPACE INNOVATIONS LLC – 1 PROGRESSIVE SEMICONDUCTOR SOLUTIONS LLC – 2 PROMETHEAN INSULATION TECHNOLOGY LLC – 10 SAINT LAWRENCE COMMUNICATIONS LLC – 1 SIGNAL ENHANCEMENT TECHNOLOGIES LLC – 1 SMARTPHONE TECHNOLOGIES LLC – 15 SUPER INTERCONNECT TECHNOLOGIES LLC – 6 SUPER RESOLUTION TECHNOLOGIES LLC – 5 TAXVANTAGE LLC – 0 UNIFIED MESSAGING SOLUTIONS LLC – 116 VERTICAL ANALYTICS LLC – 1 VIDEO STREAMING SOLUTIONS LLC – 3 VIEW 360 SOLUTIONS LLC – 1 WEB TRACKING SOLUTIONS LLC – 0 WIRELESS MOBILE DEVICES, LLC – 7
63 subsidiaries. 669 lawsuits, most of which were filed between 2011-2014 and not a single one of them filed by a company that generates anything more than legal filings. Acacia’s claim that these aren’t “frivolous” would be more credible if they weren’t filed exclusively by companies that exist only as a sheet of paper and almost solely in friendly Texas courts. The only innovations these “companies” can be linked to are efficiencies in billable hour recording.
Filed Under: lcd screen, patent trolls, patents Companies: acacia, apple, at&t, canon, garmin, innovative technologies, mazda, mercedes-benz, nikon, tomtom, verizon, volkswagen
Tech companies, even those that dislike the patent system (which is many of them), still feel pressured into getting lots of patents, often for defensive purposes, to avoid lawsuits. However, as we’ve discussed in the past, even patents that are initially obtained for defensive purposes are a nuclear weapon problem in waiting. Companies fail all the time, and their patents suddenly get sold off to the highest bidder — and quite frequently these days, those are trolls. Some companies have tried to come up with unique and innovative ways to stop this potential trolling problem. For example, a few years ago, Twitter came up with the Innovator’s Patent Agreement (IPA) which basically lets the engineers named on a patent issue a free license to whomever they want for the life of the patent. This is sort of an anti-troll talisman, because that engineer can simply go and give a free license to anyone a troll threatens.
While other companies haven’t jumped on the IPA bandwagon, it appears a bunch of tech companies are trying something different. Google, Newegg, Dropbox, SAP, Asana and Canon have teamed up to launch the “License on Transfer Network,” which is a royalty-free patent cross-licensing program, for any patent that is transferred outside of the group. The basic deal is pretty straightforward: if any company in the group transfers a patent outside the group, for any reason, everyone else in the group automatically gets a royalty-free license to that patent. Obviously, this kind of program really only works if lots of companies join, but they’ve made it incredibly easy to join. And, as Asana notes in its blog post about the program, there are tremendous network effects as more companies join:
The LOT Network is a powerful new idea that we hope will grow rapidly. Because of the inherent network effects, every additional company that joins the coalition will be a new nail in the patent troll coffin, diminishing the size of their potential market. As this happens, everyone will be able to direct more of their energy back to creating value.
Asana and Dropbox, which also put out a blog post about this both note that this only solves one aspect of the patent trolling problem, but it’s still nice to see companies coming up with innovative solutions to try to pre-empt certain types of patent trolling problems.
Filed Under: licensing, operating companies, patent trolls, patents Companies: asana, canon, dropbox, google, newegg, sap
For many years, even as people correctly noted that Intellectual Ventures was perhaps the world’s biggest patent trolling operation, the company insisted that it shouldn’t be called a troll, in part because it hadn’t actually sued anyone. That was misleading for a variety of reasons, with the biggest one being the war chest behind IV and the implicit threat of lawsuits certainly got plenty of companies to cough up huge sums to avoid them. While IV has ridiculously strict nondisclosure agreements, various leaks have suggested companies often pay hundreds of millions of dollars to Intellectual Ventures… for nothing. All they really get is a promise not to be sued and the potential to dip into IV’s big database of mostly useless patents, which the paying companies can then use to sue others. Overall, Intellectual Ventures admits that it has brought in over $2 billion dollars directly from licensing and another $5 billion in “investments” — some of which came from companies “buying in.” What a racket, huh?
Back in 2010, the company finally filed its first lawsuits. Since then it’s continued filing lawsuits on an irregular basis. 2011 was a big year, with sudden bursts of lawsuits in July, September and October. 2012 had fewer lawsuits, and just small blasts in February and May. However, it looks like IV may be ramping up with the lawsuits again. IV filed three in February (one against Windstream and a few small telcos, one against CenturyLink, Qwest, Embarq, Savvis & CenturyTel, and one against AT&T and various subsidiaries). However, in the last week or so, it’s filed three more lawsuits. First against Symantec, then against Toshiba, and the latest against Canon and Ricoh.
The latest one claims that Canon and Ricoh — two companies, I should remind you, who actually produce printers and actually add value to the world by making products — are apparently violating some IV patents which have to do with printing. They claim that Canon (whom they’ve sued before) infringes on nine patents and Ricoh infringes on seven.
So, let’s ask a simple question: what has Intellectual Ventures contributed to the world of printing?
Okay, it was a trick question: the answer is absolutely nothing. No printer company in the world has relied on some great breakthrough from Intellectual Ventures, nor have they relied on the insight gleaned from a crappy patent that IV bought at some point. No, printer companies have built and innovated based on their experience in the marketplace selling printers. Intellectual Ventures is simply trolling and taking away from actual innovators.
In a truly sickening blog post, Intellectual Ventures’ “Chief Litigation Counsel” Melissa Finnocchio tosses out IV’s standard “defense” of its indefensible activities:
Since our founding, IV has efficiently and effectively identified strong patents covering significant and relevant inventions, purchased those patents, and marketed and licensed them to companies who need them. A properly functioning patent system is the foundation of IV’s business model, along with the sensible notion that a fair price must be paid for use of a patented invention.
Almost nothing in that paragraph is accurate. IV started out by buying up patents, en masse, from various universities’ “tech transfer offices” after those universities spent big time setting up those offices, thinking it would bring in lots of cash. Then no one wanted those patents (at least not at the ridiculous prices offered) and for nearly every single university tech transfer office they suddenly became seen as a cost center, rather than a profit center as planned. Enter IV with a giant war chest, agreeing to buy up tons of crappy patents that no one else valued or wanted, on the cheap, and suddenly tech transfer offices can aggregate a bunch of patents and show some money coming in. IV has never, ever been about “identifying strong patents.” It has always been about finding enough patents they can use to pressure companies into giving them money. IV’s entire business model, from the beginning was built on exploiting a clearly broken patent system by a group of folks who had a history with the system.
As for a “fair price,” a fair price is what someone in the market is willing to pay for a product. Not what IV gets by bullying companies. IV has tens of thousands of patents. We’ve yet to find a single one that was a key breakthrough which companies relied on to move innovation forward. Because they don’t have any such patents.
Patent infringement, however, continues to be a problem and the patent system cannot work as intended if infringement goes unchecked. When sophisticated companies turn a blind eye to infringement, we are forced to take action to safeguard the value of our patents and to protect the interests of our investors and customers. Infringers need to pay for the inventions they are using. An issued patent provides rights to the patent owner and when these rights are ignored, it impairs the incentives that spur invention and poses a real threat to innovation
That entire paragraph might make sense if the patents in question were (a) unique, clearly defined and definitive breakthroughs and (b) were the main reason why other companies produced the products they did. However, since (as far as we can tell) every single situation in which IV has sued a company has been because of independent invention by actual practitioners in the field doing what the market asks for, and the patent in question has nothing to do with the actual innovation, it’s not just wrong to suggest that “infringers need to pay,” it’s a gleeful cheering on of a shakedown.
Finally, the idea that when patent owners don’t sue it somehow “impairs the incentives that spur invention and pose a real threat to innovation” has simply no basis in any reality-based discussion. The problem with the patent system today is the fact that broad and vague patents are being asserted against obvious innovations in the market place. That is putting a massive tollbooth on innovation.
We enter into litigation after careful deliberation and a thorough analysis of the patents we own and the products we believe to be infringing. The actions we take to protect our rights are with established, patent savvy technology companies – not start-ups – and we have reached settlements for significant amounts. In other words, our patent portfolios are being recognized for their validity and relevance to current industries and key technologies.
IV does not enter litigation lightly, and our actions are not frivolous. Asserting our rights is something IV, and any patent owner must do, when their patents are being used without license.
Shorter version of this paragraph: look we only shakedown big companies with big bank accounts. The fact that some of them are willing to pay does not mean the patents are recognized for their “validity.” It means that big companies can do the math on the cost of fighting IV in court, and recognize it’s cheaper to pay up than deal with the mess. IV may not enter into litigation lightly, but it’s abusing the system, taking billions of dollars out of actual innovation and is the perfect example of everything that’s wrong with the patent system.
Filed Under: innovation, markets, patent trolling, patents Companies: canon, intellectual ventures, ricoh
In an attempt by Canon to help plug the analog hole when it comes to physically copying documents, apparently its new scanner/copier machine has a feature, named Uniflow 5, which will use some optical character recognition (OCR) tech to stop you from copying/scanning anything with specific keywords:
The latest version of Uniflow has a keyword-based security system. Once configured by an administrator, the system can prevent a user from attempting to print, scan, copy or fax a document containing a prohibited keyword, such as a client name or project codename.
The server will email the administrator a PDF copy of the document in question if a user attempts to do so.
The system can optionally inform the user by email that their attempt has been blocked, but without identifying the keyword in question, maintaining the security of the system.
You can certainly see why some paranoid organizations might like this, but it seems like just another form of DRM which will likely only serve to piss off legitimate users.
Filed Under: copy machine, drm Companies: canon
It’s been a while now since ICANN announced plans to open up the top level domain space. While we’ve questioned for many years the utility of still requiring limited TLDs, ICANN’s plan to open up top level domains appeared to be more of a moneygrab than any real attempt at openness. That’s because to get your own vanity TLD, it was going to cost somewhere between $100,000 and $500,000. Who would pay that? Apparently consumer electronics firm Canon.
Dark Helmet alerts us to the news that Canon is the first company to get its own TLD, appropriately: .canon. And, no, this doesn’t mean that you’ll now need to go to http://canon.canon — but just to http://canon (that is, once it’s launched, which won’t be until at least late 2011). Oh, and apparently the cost has now solidified at $185,000. This really does seem like a pure vanity play. It’s not like anyone was having any trouble finding Canon before, and most browsers (the vast majority of those that are actually used) will often automatically add the .com if you leave it off anyway.
There might be an argument for some sites, such as social networking sites to go down this road, so that you can set up profile pages like YourName.Facebook or whatever — but it’s hard to see the value for companies like Canon.
Filed Under: domain names, tlds Companies: canon, icann
News You Could Do Without
Thomas Hawk writes "An interesting twist over at the Fake Chuck Westfall Blog. Fake Chuck (like Fake Steve before him) has a blog out parodying Canon’s real Technical Information Advisor Chuck Westfall. It seems that Canon and their lawyers over at Loeb & Loeb are none too fond of all the fun that Fake Chuck and DSLR geeks everywhere have been having at their expense and have sent Fake Chuck’s blog hosting company, WordPress, a notice to take the blog down. Canon’s lawyers cite that Fake Chuck’s blog is “calculated to mislead recipients,” even though the blog has “fake” in the title, “fake” in the URL and “fake” just about everywhere else in the blog. What in the heck is wrong with Canon, do they really think that trying to shut down a parody blog is going to make their new 5D Mark II ship any faster?"
It’s hard to understand Canon’s reasoning here — other than maybe to pull a “reverse” Streisand Effect and try to get more attention to the blog. After all, before this, who actually cared about a fake blog of a guy most people had no clue even existed?
Filed Under: fake blog, fake chuck westfall, lawyers, takedown Companies: canon
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