Microsoft to eBay name for $1m
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That's Microsoft Lda, we hasten to add Portuguese outfit Microsoft Lda aims to cash in on its name by eBaying the brand and business for a starting price of $1m, Reuters reports.â¦
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Microsoft has sued domain name registrar Red Register claiming that it is illegally profiting from Microsoft&#39;s trademarks.In a lawsuit filed in Seattle earlier this month Microsoft alleges that Red Register snatched up 125 domain names, all &quot;confusingly similar to Microsoft&#39;s Marks&quot; in order to profit from Web advertising, a practice known as typosquatting and cybersquatting.Web surfers may be tricked into clicking on ads on these sites &quot;because the person finds it easier to click on the advertisement or hyperlink than to continue searching for the Microsoft site, or because the person mistakenly believes Microsoft has authorized or endorsed the advertisements,&quot; the filings state.Typosquatting is the practice of registering domain names that contain misspellings of trademark terms. Cybersquatting is the registration of a variant of trademark.Red Register owns domains such as windowslivecare.com, msnmesnger.com, and ageofmathology.com, Microsoft said in court filings.Microsoft is seeking to take control of the Red Register domains and is asking for the court to fine the company for unspecified damages. The lawsuit was filed Dec. 4 in King County Superior Court in Seattle.Although the domains are now registered to a Tortola, Virgin Islands, company named Versata Software, they were previously registered to Red Register and Microsoft believes the current Versata registration information to be false, the filings state.Domain registrars historically made money by registering domain names to third parties, but that has changed as it has become easier to get into the domain name game. Now many registrars have begun to amass portfolios of domains themselves, or even temporarily registering domains and then dropping them before they are required to pay any fees, a practice called &quot;domain tasting,&quot; said Karl Kronenberger, a partner with Kronenberger Burgoyne LLP, a law firm specializing in Internet disputes.Some companies have even set up several domain name registrars and they pass their domain names from one to the other without ever having to pay fees. This is possible, because domains can be held for three days before any fees are due, Kronenberger said.Registrars must be accredited by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), the group that oversees the Internet&#39;s domain name system, but once that has happened they can get better access to the database of domain names. Companies like Microsoft and Google have become accredited registrars for this reason.There are presently more than 1,000 registrars worldwide, according to Kronenberger. &quot;It costs US$8,000 per year to maintain your existence as a registrar,&quot; he said. &quot;once you pay that, you can register domains very cheaply.&quot;Some registrars have amassed valuable portfolios without running afoul of trademark law, but Microsoft&#39;s Red Register lawsuit is not unprecedented. In October, Yahoo filed a similar lawsuit against Belgium Domains . One month later another lawsuit was filed against Belgium Domains, this time by Dell.Kronenberger said the Microsoft lawsuit &quot;seems to be a pretty straightforward case of a registrar registering large batches of domains containing trademarks.&quot;Microsoft has filed at least five other similar lawsuits in recent years. In March it announced that reached a $2 million settlement against Jason Cox of New Mexico and Newtonarch LLC. It also announced a $1 million settlement in a similar suit against Partner IV Holdings.Microsoft and Red Register did not immediately return e-mail seeking comment for this story.&#160;
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SBC Communications SBC.N will pay Microsoft Corp. MSFT.O at least $400 million over 10 years for technology to help SBC sell video services over its upgraded broadband lines, the companies said Wednesday.
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Redmond hopes the hefty deal will make it a player in the advertising marketplace.
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Microsoft said it plans to buy Fast Search & Transfer of Oslo for $1.2 billion to expand into Internet-search systems for businesses.
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Online auction giant eBay Inc. will stop letting members sign in to its site using Microsoft Corp.&#39;s Passport service, another sign of the scaling back of the Redmond company&#39;s once-sweeping vision for its user authentication system.
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Wants to mine web with Fast buy Microsoft is to acquire Norwegian business search engine company Fast Search and Transfer for 6.6bn kroner ($1.23bn).â¦
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Blog: eBay takes the top spot as a Web services provider although Microsoft continues to maintain developer loyalty.
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InfoWorld - In November, Microsoft representatives began to comment that the enterprise search market had reached "a tipping point"; on Tuesday, the company backed up that claim with a bundle of cash,Â offering to buy enterprise search software company Fast Search And Transfer (FAST)Â for 6.6 billion Norwegian kroner ($1.2 billion).
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The Get 1, Give 1 promotion for the $100 laptop is very tempting.
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Auction site eBay announced to members on its Web site Wednesday afternoon that it will drop support for Microsoft&#39;s Passport and .
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Microsoft has offered to buy Norwegian Internet-search software firm Fast Search & Transfer for about $1.2 billion.
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In an attempt to further spur development for its chosen next-generation DVD platform, Microsoft is making the tool available for $2,999.
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Your name is synonymous with searching the Internet, and you&#39;ve just raised roughly $1.7 billion from investors by going public.
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NEW YORK _ Britney Spears' lopped-off locks can be yours for just $1 million on eBay _ direct from the salon owner whose clippers the shorn star used during her weekend meltdown.
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eBay has announced that its users no longer will be able to sign in to its Web sites using Passort, Microsoft&#39;s identity-management technology.
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SEATTLE: A San Francisco judge ordered Microsoft Corp to pay lawyers involved in its $1.1 billion class action settlement $100 million in legal fees, less than half of the original fees they requested, company officials said.