tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-378005952011-12-14T18:47:09.001-08:00marshmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15842842610664670591noreply@blogger.comBlogger11100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37800595.post-1164600288999776712006-11-26T19:28:00.000-08:002006-11-27T13:33:17.980-08:00(update: here's the <a href="http://digg.com/offbeat_news/diggdot_us_is_now_called_doggdot_us">story on d*gg</a>)<br /><br /><a href="http://diggdot.us/">diggdot.us</a> has been around for exactly a year. I put it together one day because I found myself hitting d*gg.com, del.icio.us/popular and slashdot.org many times a day and was tired of seeing duplicate stories. I put the site up on <a href="http://frozenbear.com/">frozenbear.com</a>, and the next day it showed up on d*gg.com and the top of del.icio.us/popular. Nothing fancy at all. I'm sure most of d*gg's readers could write the same site in a day. But it seemed to strike a chord as many other geeks out there were going through the same daily rotation of those three sites. The site has a small following and we've tried to do our part to add to the community of geeks sharing and talking about tech news.<br /><br />Fun times. Seems pretty harmless. We're promoting the source sites. I don't think there is much confusion surrounding my website. It's not affiliated with any of the source sites and I think that's pretty clear to our audience.<br /><br />Fast forward one year (a few weeks ago). We get a cease & desist letter from d*gg's lawyers. We're not the only ones. A few other d*gg community sites (<a href="http://digg.com/design/Diggcard_to_close_26th_November">diggcard.com</a>, <a href="http://digg.com/tech_news/Digg_Forces_Shutdown_of_DiggGames_com_Domain">digggames.com</a>, <a href="http://digg2phone.com/">digg2phone.com</a>) have received the same letter and have shut down. It sucks seeing those other sites shut down. There are probably a few hundred more cease & desist letters in transit to other d*gg community sites right now.<br /><br />Back when digggames shut down, Kevin Rose <a href="http://diggtheblog.blogspot.com/2006/08/digg-trademarks-and-confusion.html">posted</a> :<br /><blockquote>We don't want to shut anyone down (not even the clone sites), all we ask is that you avoid using the name 'digg' in your website names/domains. We're looking to see if we have any other options.<br /></blockquote><br />I tried contacting him (I couldn't find his address and tried going through d*gg's feedback address) to see how he's doing on those other options. No luck; I received no response from him or d*gg.<br /><br />So, best of luck to the hundreds of domains that have "digg" in their names. A lot of people have put in a lot of time to enhance the d*gg community by creating these sites. Some will just go away. Others, like mine, will change their name and see if that keeps d*gg's lawyers content. In the end, I don't know what it will do to d*gg's community of fans and developer-fans. It's left a bad taste in my mouth.<br /><br />In any case, feel free to read some tech news at the freshly named <a href="http://doggdot.us/">doggdot.us</a>.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/37800595-116460028899977671?l=doggdotus.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>marshmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15842842610664670591noreply@blogger.com76