Wonder how Germany would get this into service? A fake Mozilla web site or a man in the middle attack? Sound nefarious either way. Are they slipping back into the old SS ways of thinking (or did some out of control American agency give them some hints?) Would like some clean answers on that dirt. (and not just shoo shooing with some other political public distractions.)

Shams are everywhere and when a flim-flam (theft by deception) is being perpetrated its best to use the most trusted names in the world and Mozilla fits the evil need of the ones (Germany? And who else?) who want to deceive.

Wanna charge a person a fee to apply for a large famous company? Swipe the logos and name of IBM or ATT and see how much you can make before someone actually calls the home office. So in a way trademark law can make it easier for such deceptions to exist.

If a suggestion could be made; enforce the crime itself and don’t involve trademark law. Its a derivative abuse of copyright law and not any more pleasant. Just because it was easier for Mozilla to prosecute for a corporate trademark violation is only a symptom of how weak common criminal/civil law is compared to corporate trademark law.

Trademark law, like copyright law, at one time did perform a somewhat beneficial service to Public Domain Rights but its all long gone in a wash of special interest farm animal feeding upon misplaced public trust in Washington. Was it used well and maybe wisely in this case? Sure, very possibly.

But what if the corporation that owns the trademark itself is the perpetrator of abuse? Would they file for trademark based take-down DMCA notices to try and suppress public opinion? Maybe. Its happened before and with the current lax, corporate one sided, law it will again. Unless steep penalties are enacted against companies who abuse free speech it will also increase.

A somewhat good example was Sony’s use of a rootkit for spying on its very own paying customers. That was before layers learned to abuse the DMCA so it did not happen but it could have? Its sooooo easy to do. Might that same rootkit do some dirty work itself (or installing some new software that did) like monitoring any correspondence with the word Sony in it?

There are many problems with current trademark law. Much deals with the lack of oversight and its effects on society and its various cultures?

Trademark law was not supposed to interfere with culture or society. Many cultural figures are firmly based in culture like the Disney characters or Marvel heroes (now Disney controlled). These types of trademarks are subtractions from culture and should never have been allowed. Any such attempt at permanent theft from American culture should be punished.

How is Disney to profit if they loose their precious eternal copyright and trademark laws? Don’t know. Maybe they would have to start making new creative work. An end to the rehashing of old crap would be nice. No we do not need another remake of Witch Mountain or whatever? Maybe you like that?

What we need are new interpretations that build or tear down the old way of thinking.

Punchline;

Do we need spy programs that build on the great work of other companies? No. Spying is always wrong. Trust, at least, your own citizens. Do we need to invoke trademark law to prevent this? No. Spying is illegal? Making false claims is illegal. Deception for profit or harm is illegal. Etc.

Who knows anymore. But. At least it once was; In a land called The United States of America. (at least was for some time after the constitution was written) That great almost-dead myth we invoke at camp-side fire to shoo away ghost stories of how the copyright bogeymen (people) will come and take you away in the night. Which is real and fiction?

Reactionary,

Its probably best not to use the built in search box and use some less common method like visiting a web page. Use two browsers. One for general browsing with all java and flash shut down and other safeguards like Privoxy and NoScript or whatever. Use the other less restricted browser for safe/known sites.