Terrible Ruling Allows Untied To Keep Its Domain But Not Its Soul
from the pointless-generosity dept
Let’s jump back in the wayback machine for a moment and discuss Untied, your primary source for customer and employee complaints about United Airlines. When we last wrote about the site in 2012, we first mentioned that Untied.com has been a thing since 1997 before detailing the lawsuit United Airlines filed in Canada after it found that Untied.com had redesigned its parody site to look more like United.com.
Untied, if you are not aware, is a site that started with a single person’s complaint about United Airlines customer service before morphing into an aggregator of such complaints from both customers and internal airline staff and former staff. If you want a bible to be written on what United has done wrong in the realm of customer service, you need not worry because Untied.com is that bible. Had this suit been filed in America, it would face a mountain of caselaw suggesting that so-called “sucks sites” are well within the boundaries of protected nominative fair use. It’s worth mentioning that Untied doesn’t actively attempt to mislead visitors to the site into thinking it’s affiliated with the airline. In fact, visitors are shown a popup upon visiting that alerts them to Untied’s status as a parody site. Even a cursory glance at the site’s contents would confirm that status, as the entire site is dedicated to taking a metaphorical dump on United Airlines’ reputation.
Despite the site having existed for so long, and despite the fact that the Streisand Effect exists, United Airlines filed its lawsuit, bringing all manner of attention to Untied that it otherwise would not have had, even as the airline is and has been maligned in nearly every corner of the internet for its laughable attempts at customer service. In its filing, United Airlines insisted that Untied had infringed its trademark rights and copyright rights with the site. It requested an injunction against the site before suggesting that just to make sure the injunction was clear, maybe the court ought to just hand the site over to United Airlines to boot.
“If the Court finds in favour of United Airlines and determines that an injunction should issue, the injunction needs to be clearly understood by the parties, and in particular the Defendant. As such, the Court may need to consider ordering the Defendant to transfer ownership of the domain name and other internet presences to ensure the injunction is clear and will be respected.”
Well, the court has ruled on the injunction. The good news is that the court declined to hand over the Untied.com domain to the airline. The bad news is that court does rule that the site is infringing both United’s copyright and trademark rights and instead said Untied can only keep its name if it ceases to be Untied at all.
The Plaintiff is entitled to an injunction restraining the Defendant’s use of the United Marks and the copyrighted works. The Court retains jurisdiction over this matter to provide effective relief against the Defendant. The Defendant may retain the use of the domain name www.untied.com – however, this must not be in association with the same services as provided by the Plaintiff.
As the folks who run Untied explain, the entire argument that United Airlines made in this action is that it too provides consumer feedback and complaint services for its own business, which is why it declared the public would be confused by the site. Effectively, this ruling allows Untied to keep its domain, but only if it ceases to be Untied.
Keeping in mind the position argued by United, that one of its “services” is dealing with passenger complaints, this would mean that the injunction would prevent Untied.com from existing as a site hosting passenger complaints against United. I feel that I have no choice but to bring this decision to the Federal Court of Appeal. Even if the wheels of justice are stacked against me as a self-represented litigant, defending myself against a massive corporation with virtually unlimited resources, I don’t want to throw in the towel in defeat.
It’s nice to see someone want to fight this out, but the focus here also needs to be on what an absolutely atrocious ruling this is from the court. Parody is to be protected on matters of copyright, whereas trademark law is focused on real or potential customer confusion within the marketplace. Again, this suit was filed in Canada, so the exact American standard for fair use doesn’t apply, but no serious examination of the Untied.com website would lead to the conclusion that confusion was any issue, only strengthening the stance that the parody status of the site ought to protect it from the copyright claim. To, in the face of all that, first rule otherwise and then make this meaningless concession only adds insult to injury. For United to spend half a decade doing battle with a site that echoes many others’ disdain for United’s customer service in the name of trying to censor that site makes zero sense from a purely business perspective.
Perhaps, rather than spending half a decade fighting a website about customer service complaints, United Airlines could have spent that time and money providing better customer service and not dragging paying passengers off their airplanes.
Filed Under: canada, complaints, customer complaints, sucks sites, trademark
Companies: united, united airlines, untied
Comments on “Terrible Ruling Allows Untied To Keep Its Domain But Not Its Soul”
Parody, satire
This court’s ruling is in the finest satirical tradition.
but it’s more important to drag customers off airplanes and take them to court than to provide sensible, legitimate customer service, isn’t it!
If the lawsuit was filled in Canada then the site is owned and ran by Canadians? If that’s the case I’m sure we’d find plenty of people willing to bring it to the US and dare UA to sue there.
Anyway, I had forgotten about the site. Time to check it again for more Streisand.
"You're allowed to complain, you're just not allowed to say who you're complaining about."
The Defendant may retain the use of the domain name http://www.untied.com – however, this must not be in association with the same services as provided by the Plaintiff.
I wasn’t aware that United had a service wherein people could publicly list complaints they had with the company for all to see.
… what’s that, they don’t? Which means that this is in no way competing or ‘replacing’ something they already have, meaning they are adding something to the discussion?
Yeah, the judge here screwed up badly, and basically handed United a total victory despite ‘refusing’ to give them one of the things they were asking for.
Solid ruling
The court got it right. The potential for consumer confusion through a typo domain is actually fairly high, especially if they were being presented with a look alike site.
Dropping the look-alike part would fix part of it, but it for me shows intent by the defendants to confuse or mislead the public. As such, allowing them to continue to use a type domain to protest United is taking too big of a risk of ongoing customer confusion. The defendants were trying to use customer confusion and typos to benefit their campaign against United, which is really an unfair practice.
Get a domain like “wehateunited.com” or whatever and run your bitch session there. No chance of confusion there.
Re: ... assuming everyone is an idiot perhaps
It’s worth mentioning that Untied doesn’t actively attempt to mislead visitors to the site into thinking it’s affiliated with the airline. In fact, visitors are shown a popup upon visiting that alerts them to Untied’s status as a parody site. Even a cursory glance at the site’s contents would confirm that status, as the entire site is dedicated to taking a metaphorical dump on United Airlines’ reputation.
If someone can see that, and/or even visit a site that makes it very clear that it’s focused on mocking a particular company and still think that it’s run by the company in question I think it’s pretty clear that they’re either incredibly gullible or not paying the slightest bit of attention, neither of which are worth an injunction.
Re: Re: ... assuming everyone is an idiot perhaps
Well, he is that stupid so he probably has tried booking a flight there in the past.
Re: Re: ... assuming everyone is an idiot perhaps
“If someone can see that, and/or even visit a site that makes it very clear that it’s focused on mocking a particular company and still think that it’s run by the company in question I think it’s pretty clear that they’re either incredibly gullible or not paying the slightest bit of attention, neither of which are worth an injunction.”
It’s easy to just go “people are stupid, next” (after all PaulT has posted, and he’s clearly stupid). However, that doesn’t make much sense.
If you got wayback the site, you will see that over time they have moved towards a site that looks remarkably like an airline or travel site. While to goal is parody, the other effect is to create confusion.
That the defendants have updated their site repeatedly to try to keep up with the site designs of United shows a desire to mislead, not just to provide information.
Oh, and about that information. It appears that a good part of the site was used to distribute United’s employee’s personal information, even after the courts had long held UNTIED to stop doing so.
It should be noted that Untied is not an airline, but representing itself as one is in itself misleading.
For what it’s worth, the case really resolves itself in point 62 – actual consumer confusion. The defendant himself admitted the the consumers are clearly confused.
You also need to read a little more about the whole story. His entire deal (20 years of obsessing over an airline he flew once) revolves around not sitting next to his wife, not hearing a gate change notice, and having his suit crumpled. Yup, that’s it – that is what triggered this guy to spend 20 years of his life on this.
http://business.financialpost.com/transportation/montreal-professors-feud-with-united-airlines-heads-to-court-over-complaint-website/wcm/9b45f817-13c7-4eca-9d52-a2eaf052ae54
Oh, and the only witness called by the defendant (who represented himself) was himself. He failed all down the line without end.
Perhaps rather than slamming me, you might want to take the time to read the judgement (58 pages is a lot for those with ADD, I guess) and come to understand why Canadian law is in some respects different from US law, and the citations and cases referenced can tell you a whole bunch about how the court came to it’s judgement.
For what it’s worth, the domain itself has some value (it’s a valid english word, 6 letters, dot com). he can perhaps extract a few thousand dollars for the domain and consolation for wasting half his adult life over a wrinkled suit.
Re: Re: Re: ... assuming everyone is an idiot perhaps
No. Apparently you are part of the demographics stupid enough to get confused.
Re: Re: Re:2 ... assuming everyone is an idiot perhaps
I am not confused by it.
I am confused why you refuse to read the ruling or the citation in it, or consider the bad acts and bad faith moves made by the site owner.
You can try Mike’s “you don’t know anything” speech now if it will make you feel better, but it still will mean you didn’t bother to read the full story.
Re: Re: Re:3 ... assuming everyone is an idiot perhaps
There you are. Every time, as soon as we turn around. Now you’re just going to get all full of yourself and vomit it back up on another thread.
Re: Re: Re:3 ... assuming everyone is an idiot perhaps
Hey AverageJoe, sorry to see you’re back with your almost-logical half-baked arguments. You’re wrong of course, but you’re wrong in a semi-plausible way. The owner made no bad faith moves and you know it. The site is clearly parody and even identifies itself as such.
Please take your bullshit somewhere else.
Re: Re: Re: ... assuming everyone is an idiot perhaps
“That the defendants have updated their site repeatedly to try to keep up with the site designs of United shows a desire to mislead”
No, it shows a desire to parody, since a parody of a site doesn’t work if your parody looks nothing like the target site. I mean, it’s right there in the dictionary definition of the word:
parody
[par-uh-dee]
noun, plural parodies.
1.
a humorous or satirical imitation of a serious piece of literature or writing:
See that word – imitation? Do you need me to look that up for you as well?
I know you’re desperate to argue against everything this site and its community says. But, you really have to come up with more believable arguments that don’t fall apart once a sliver of logic, facts and common sense are applied.
“It should be noted that Untied is not an airline, but representing itself as one is in itself misleading.”
Good thing they’re presenting themselves as a parody site and not an airline, then.
“the defendant (who represented himself)”
In all your rambling bollocks, this is really the only thing that matters. As the saying goes, he had a fool for a client. A seasoned lawyer would have done a better job, and the judge can only rule on what’s presented to him.
I do find it amusing that someone who spends so much time obsessing over this site is criticising others for obsessing over another site, though.
Re: Re: Re:2 ... assuming everyone is an idiot perhaps
Paul, ready the story. By the defendant’s own admissions, consumers were confused, and his choices to follow the United site designs closely were there to foster that confusion.
Parody in one thing. This is not parody. This is an upset consumer who decided to try to do as much harm as possible to an airline for (and I kid you not) apparently not telling him personally about a gate change, not sitting him next to his wife on a flight, and crumpling his suits by putting a baby cart or something on top of his suit bag. Oh, in 1996.
Read the judgement, you will see. The defendants actions caused consumer confusion. It caused harm. Consumers posted complaints on his site that were clearly intended for United to resolve and not as just bitching to fill a site. The defendant admits that he knew there was consumer confusion. We won’t even get into the whole discussion of doxxing employees and posting personal information online (which had already been orders stopped by the courts, this isn’t a new case)
As for representing himself, I don’t think that a seasoned lawyer would have done better – except to tell the guy he should have settled more than a decade ago.
“I do find it amusing that someone who spends so much time obsessing over this site is criticising others for obsessing over another site, though.”
The same could be said of you Paul. Is anyone who regularly visits and contributed to a lively debate obsessed in your book? It would suggest that most of the writers on Techdirt (who posted comments before joining staff) are obsessed, not normal people.
You failed. Stop before you make it worse.
Re: Re: Re:3 ... assuming everyone is an idiot perhaps
“By the defendant’s own admissions, consumers were confused, and his choices to follow the United site designs closely were there to foster that confusion.”
But, was the confusion deliberate – as you are claiming – or did he agree to make some changes to reduce confusion while maintaining the parody? I’m not reading whatever 60 page document you want to link to, but I’ll be happy to read any evidence you want to specifically reference (this is how honest debate works – “page 36 of the judgement shows….” is honest. “read every page that I’ve ever read on the subject and you’ll come to the same conclusion and I’ll just claim you’re lying/lazy if you don’t agree” is not).
“This is not parody”
Yes, it is.
You do obsess over how petty you think his reasons for creating a parody are, but what are your reasons for attacking this site so obsessively? I’ll bet they’re equally petty.
“Is anyone who regularly visits and contributed to a lively debate obsessed in your book”
No, but people who constant come here, personally attack both writers and other commenters and runs away from conversations whenever their bullshit is exposed – only to try repeating the same crap on the next thread – does seem to have some real obsessive issues. You should stop doing that.
Re: Re: Re:4 ... assuming everyone is an idiot perhaps
Umm, Paul, the 58 pages are the judgement attached to the story. if you can’t be bothered to read, stop talking, you are just making a fool of yourself.
…and no it’s not parody, it’s an attack site, a vengeful sites operated by someone with an ax to grind. Oh, and in Canadian law, there is no particular provision for parody in relation to trademarks.
Game, set Match. Now be quiet!
Re: Re: Re:5 ... assuming everyone is an idiot perhaps
“if you can’t be bothered to read, stop talking, you are just making a fool of yourself.”
I’ve encounters twats like you on a regular basis. It’s always the same conversation:
Moron: “rambling nonsense/crazy argument”
Me: “what’s your evidence?”
Moron: “here’s a stupidly long document / Google it”
Me: “OK, I read/searched. It doesn’t say what you think it does / I can’t find what you’re going on about”
Moron: “nuh uh/silence”
People like you aren’t worth wasting time with, because you always come from a place of dishonesty, and will avoid ever admitting fault or taking part in honest debate. You will rather insist that every person reading your comment here waste time proving you wrong than you will spend 30 seconds to provide evidence that you are correct.
Reference the pages that back up your argument, otherwise I will assume that you are lying, as per your proven track record on this site.
“no it’s not parody, it’s an attack site”
What’s the specific distinction? Where is the line drawn? What specifically makes this cross the line?
“Oh, and in Canadian law, there is no particular provision for parody in relation to trademarks.”
The argument at hand is not the judgement or Canadian law, it’s your idiotic assertions – that some thing is not parody if it’s close enough to the original to be accurate, and that a man’s attempt at parody doesn’t count if you think his reasons are trivial enough.
Do you fancy that actual arguments at hand, or just continue making a mockery of yourself, as you do in every thread where you fail to back up your ridiculous assertions?
“Game, set Match. Now be quiet!”
Not until you stop being a blithering idiot with a weird fetish about this site and its users.
Re: Re: Re:6 ... assuming everyone is an idiot perhaps
Seriously, you have made yourself the fool. The document is the one attached to the story, it’s not some random piece of unchecked web dreck you often come up with. It’s Tim’s fault, he put it in the story because it’s relevant (ie, the judgement, in detail).
It’s seriously there in as many words. If you can’t find it, you are an idiot, plain and simple. You have proven it so solidly in this thread that it’s beyond understanding. Stop digging that hole, old man!
Next time I blow off one of your long winded answers because I do a major TL;dr and pretty much ignore you, you will know why.
Re: Re: Re:7 ... assuming everyone is an idiot perhaps
So, you’re still too dumb to understand that I’m addressing your assertions, not the ones in the story, even though I specifically stated that? You’re also too dumb to understand that I’m requesting the exact page you’re referring to, not questioning the validity of the document, since liars such as yourself routinely avoid being pinned down (as you’ve ably demonstrated here). You also avoid answering every other point I’ve addressed, in favour of the one you feel you can wave away with misdirection and name calling.
In other words – you’re avoiding every point raised, and refuse to answer anything directly, instead requesting that everyone reading this conversation waste their time trawling through a large document rather than you provide an extremely simple citation to back up your own assertion (which again, is nothing to do with the article so stop bringing Tim into this – I’m asking you to back up YOUR words).
Pretty typical, again what a dishonest ass you are.
Re: Re: Re:8 ... assuming everyone is an idiot perhaps
I am smart enough to know when you are trying to avoid saying “I was wrong” and instead are spending your time slagging me off personally.
“you’re avoiding every point raised”
Let’s see:
I’ve encounters twats like you on a regular basis
People like you aren’t worth wasting time with
people who constant come here, personally attack both writers and other commenters
Hard to address your points when you are literally beating up on yourself.
However, one point i will directly address:
” was the confusion deliberate – as you are claiming – or did he agree to make some changes to reduce confusion while maintaining the parody? I’m not reading whatever 60 page document you want to link to, but I’ll be happy to read any evidence you want to specifically reference (this is how honest debate works – “page 36 of the judgement shows….” is honest.”
If you aren’t willing to go read the document, I am not going to play Coles notes for you. To have a better understanding of the story, you should read the documents attached by the writer, as they are quite important. The answers to your questions are all in there, but you have to read more of it to understand how and why they go there. There is no single line that I can point to that answers your wide ranging question, as it has to do with the whole judgement and how it got there, and not a single hot quote that can satisfy you.
I will give you one to work from: ” During cross-examination on one such complaint, the Defendant
himself acknowledged that “clearly this customer is confused”. “
If you want to understand the ruling (and the rules and laws of Canada), you need to read it, at least at a cursory level. Canadian law is different from US law (parody requires actual comedy, “sucks” sites are not considered parody in Canadian law, apparently). Moreover, the defendant in the story repeatedly admits to his use of United’s graphics, site design, and such. You cannot get the full understanding by hitting 1 or 2 pages, you really need to real through the whole thing. The judge does an excellent job in explaining (with bilingual citations, I should point out) as to how the judgement was reached.
Contrary to the way the story is written here on Techdirt, the judgement is sound and reasonable as per Canadian law. The law of Canada does not give quite as much latitude as is given in the US for defamatory speech guised as a “sucks” site.
Read Paul. Learn something. Oh, and the personal attacks are almost all yours. Perhaps you need to fix yourself first!
Re: Re: Re:9 ... assuming everyone is an idiot perhaps
“I am smart enough to know when you are trying to avoid saying “I was wrong” and instead are spending your time slagging me off personally.”
I’m not wrong, you just can’t be bothered to address anything that’s actually been said. I apologise if I’m finding more creative ways to call you out for being the kind of liar you are, but it would get boring to use the same word every time you act like that. Which is every thread you comment in.
“If you aren’t willing to go read the document, I am not going to play Coles notes for you”
Again, proving yourdself to be the delusional liar you are, you cannot be bothered to cite exactly what you are trying to use as evidence for your own claim. No, I am not going to read a 60 page document to try and locate what the hell you’re going on about, especially when experience tells me you will just move the goalposts when I do so. If you can’t be bothered to cite the basis for your own claims, I’m not going to do your research for you.
“Contrary to the way the story is written here on Techdirt, the judgement is sound and reasonable as per Canadian law.”
Once again, this conversation has fuck all to do with Canadian law. I’m asking you to back up the claims you made yourself, not what the judge said. But, you’re too interested in distraction and lying to actually address what’s being asked of you.
I apologise again if you’re offended for being called a lazy, lying asshole, but you earn that label with distinction.
Re: Solid ruling
Watching you be wrong is like a dog eating its own puke. Sure we try to stop you, but the second our backs are turned, there you are again.
Re: Re: Solid ruling
And we all know when he knows he’s wrong: he stops responding to the post correcting him.
It’s not worth trying to debate him. Scraptivism requires that the arguments being made are aimed at his audience so the effort of rebuttal isn’t wasted.
Re: Re: Re: Solid ruling
You have described mist if the posts on Techdirt perfectly
Re: Re: Re:2 Solid ruling
To be fair, a lot of those are mine.
Awesome ruling! ... for big business.
No more complaint sites! Just make sure your site handles complaints, then no one else is allowed a site that handles complaints. Then make it nearly impossible to actually leave a complaint and you’ll be able to truthfully lie about how few complaints customers have.
Re: Awesome ruling! ... for big business.
"My site doesn’t handle complaints. It handles criticism."
Is the judge an idiot? Not likely.
Was he compromised in some way?
More than likely and confirmed if in Quebec
you know… almost all the copyright cases remind me of the "Argument Dept" from Monty Python, like this: Here is your court case.
Hopefully some free speech favouring Canadian lawyer will step up and take this pro-bono rather than letting this person self represent before the court of appeals and create bad precedent that we will be stuck with forever. While I wish people could self represent successfully as it would make access to justice more equitable mostly they just wreck it for themselves AND everyone else who has similar cases in the future.
Re: Re:
So what are they meant to do if they cannot afford a lawyer, or find one to work for them pro-bono, give up, and leave the precedent set by the lower court in place?
Not that I differ on this topic, but do wish re-writers would pause to consider that big business just doesn't work the way you believe.
Exactly none of the companies that you rail about actually mind the resultant adverse publicity. To hold otherwise, you have to believe that YOU know more than do the people running vast corporations. Every piece like this just proves that they’ve some over-riding motive. — So just drop the notion. It’s chutzpah, hubris, baseless arrogance, and clearly wrong. The falsity of that notion is holding you down. Your railing has no effect other than in your own mind, making you feel significant though all evidence proves NOT. — That’s reality, and yes, it bites.
—- Side note:
You need to strike out on your own, Geigner. Just look at number of comments to your pieces vs others. Techdirt is washed-up, like dead fish on the beach.
Re: Not that I differ on this topic, but do wish re-writers would pause to consider that big business just doesn't work the way you believe.
Uh… How about no?
Re: Not that I differ on this topic, but do wish re-writers would pause to consider that big business just doesn't work the way you believe.
“It’s chutzpah, hubris, baseless arrogance, and clearly wrong.”
I agree, a perfect description.
Wait, you were referring to your own posts, weren’t you?
Re: Not that I differ on this topic, but do wish re-writers would pause to consider that big business just doesn't work the way you believe.
Well I suppose that make your dumb ass the rotten head of said fish.
Popup?
How about a static banner at the top stating the same as the popup and have it show on every page even when you scroll through a page.