Tony Owens, Finance Director of Linn, causes shut down of Linn owner's website...Tony Owens, Finance Director of Linn, used all of his corporate might to shut down a Linn enthusiast's website, affectionately called the LK Owners Klub. The domain linn.org.uk, an amateur website providing free classified advertising and other resources for Linn owners, was apparently coded a little too well for Linn's liking. Owens stated, "We appreciate that you would like to use our trade marks to promote Linn products and your business but the format of your website could be commercially confusing as the public could easily conclude that your website belongs to Linn Products Limited or that it is related to Linn Products Limited." Owens started proceedings with Nominet, the internet registy for .uk domain names, claiming rights to the domain name through abusive registration. The website, which mainly promoted Linn products and excluded other hi-fi manufacturers, was in fact a Linn enthusiast's amateur website and not a business at all. The public relations fiasco was compounded when CC Technology, Linn's hosting company, contacted the host of linn.org.uk to say, "My client www.linn.co.uk is concerned that the owner of this domain is damaging their web presence unfairly." Dave Allan, Managing Director of CC Technology, also stated, "Linn are raising this with Nominet and I expect a successful outcome." Addressing linn.org.uk's hosting company, and referring to the speed at which Linn's request for logo and name removal from the website was achieved, "This is impressive fast work," Allan continued, "Can you please remove this reference to me just as quickly?" The hosting company for linn.org.uk did not at any time edit, any part in any way, the content of the webpages concerned. Trading Standards, Glenrothes, were unable to comment as to the legality of a hosting company editing the content of a consumer's webpage. They were also unable to ascertain whether the shutting down of the linn.org.uk website amounted to collusion between the two hosting companies to suppress information, or if such an arrangement might possibly be illegal. A representative at www.website-law.co.uk advised no breach of copyright had occurred in using partial quotes from the correspondence between the two hosting companies, and found the matter of fact presentation of these statements to be non-defamatory. He also advised that personal websites, no matter the contract, attracted consumer rights. Like webauthors, UK web hosting companies are also deemed to be publishers, but are more likely to redirect the DNS and turn a site off before editing website content free of charge. The website had a SEO score of 88%. The domain linn.org.uk is not associated in any way or form with Linn Products. The webauthor owned: Compact Disc Players Pre-amplifiers Power Amplifiers Loudspeakers Accessories Linn offered no apology for treating one of their customers in this heavy-handed manner. Indeed, they seemingly preferred to continue pursuing an already resolved situation by requesting contractual written confirmation of the Nominet arbitration agreement. Interestingly, the agreement amounted to no more than what had already been achieved within an hour of receiving the initial complaint from Tony Owens at Linn. Consequently, this request was viewed as a simple ruse, and cover for poor public relations, by attempting to have their customer indirectly admit to malicious action, as opposed to genuine product enthusiasm, and the request was refused; Linn then gave up in their pursuit for ownership of the linn.org.uk domain. This situation appears to be a perfect example of misguided commitment to a single manufacturer, and possibly to the British high-fidelity industry as a whole. This seemingly exaggerated over-reaction appears to have mile-wide justification, but inch-deep common sense; Also known as 'Head up your own arse syndrome!' |