Do you habitually type your own URL in the browser, instead of a bookmark or a desktop shortcut?
If that’s how you navigate the Internet, be prepared to open a Minicharge account with GoDaddy first.
These Minicharge accounts are used to submit micropayments – as low as one US cent – to destinations worldwide.
Earlier this year, GoDaddy filed a patent application with the USPTO that – according to the documentation – performs the following functions:
“… by using a means of a terminal or keyboard or other entry device – including output by a visual, audio or extrasensory mechanism – provides the destination URL to the software performing the connection via http protocol to web sites. “
What that means, in plain English, is that it doesn’t matter if you type, point to or speak the target URL of your destination on the Internet – as long as you use a browser, GoDaddy now owns the patent which enables that connection.
Quite often, corporations apply for and obtain patents which seem unrelated to their business. IBM, for example, owns a patent for the quick refill of gas station bathrooms’ flushing water tanks – Intel owns a patent about the isometric creation of waffle stacking, and Xerox owns a patent about an ultra-fine pencil sharpening process.
All these patents are obtained defensively, having in mind that such applications that might exist in the future would increase a company’s worth.
Apparently, GoDaddy plans to enforce its newly obtained patent as early as during the first quarter of 2010. Obviously, with monetization of domain traffic in mind anyone who attempts to visit a URL will automatically be taken to GoDaddy’s portal in order to submit micropayments; thus far, it is unclear if they will give special treatment to domain names registered with GoDaddy.com
Copyright © 2024 DomainGang.com · All Rights Reserved.
LOL Good to see you’re back on track.
David – we’ve always been on track – the track of entertainment 😀 Great seeing the new look of TGIF as well 😉
“GoDaddy Enforces Patent 2009017182431”
Lucius,
This is scary stuff.
I happen to have a ,um, very “close’ relationship with one of the GoDaddy girls.
I just learned GoDaddy will not use the court system to enforce their patent.
Bob Parsons, as I’m sure you know, is ex-military via Special Forces and has a
major stable of paramilitary and mercenary pros he’s planning to hire and use to
enforce Patent # 2009017182431.
Bob’s just hired legendary mercenary, Bullit Turbine, as his first enforcer
See here:.
http://snurl.com/BullitTurbine
We are all doomed! GoDaddy will take over the world for every web site we visit they will collect money.
If it is a joke, OK, but if real, then other more serious thoughts are in order…Thus, assuming it is real…Whatever idiot suggested that GoDaddy try to reroute global traffic through their own micropayments window should be laughed out of the nearest courtroom, along with all the elderly and alcoholic ambulance chasers that traditionally crawled the halls of country courthouses. Seriously, speaking, however. The international lawsuits that will crop up against GoDaddy for trying to do this unethical, unseemly and probably massively illegal traffic diversion will kill his company. “Too much partying” may be the cause of such thoughts, but the financial and legal implications could be devastating for both the company and its owner, depending upon the country and legal jurisdiction in which the lawsuits will be filed against them and, quite likely, against him. What you can do technically, cannot always be done legally – even if backed up with a patent approval that can be and in this case, if real, will certainly be challenged in court. Talk about a business case “hanging on a slender thread”! The sheer ludicrousness of such a patent application makes one wonder quietly if the patent office people ever talk to their own in house legal counsel at all. One can expect the lawsuits against GoDaddy will be numerous, from many countries, and class action lawsuits, at that. It can be imagined that more than a few may be ultimately successful. Some lawsuits will be thrown out as ill-prepared, but the ones done well and by experts will hold water quite well, I predict. Class Action lawsuit firms will have a wonderful time,and not just in English and not just in the USA! How many languages do GoDaddy’s lawyers speak and read fluently, and in how many countries are they admitted to the bar? Even Microsoft and Intel, for all their past naive behavior in the European Union, are no longer so naive. The EU will have a glorious field day party – lasting years, conceivably- countering such a stupid and ludicrous move by GoDaddy’s management – and the fines will be epic against GoDaddy, which will not get much sympathy from anyone in official circles in Washington, neither in Congress, nor in the halls of the US Government, nor in international diplomatic circles I suspect.. Certainly in the EU, such a rerouting of traffic for what will be undoubtedly considered a kind of technical fraud for illicit financial gain, and hence a technical hijacking of Internet traffic across international borders, will probably be determined to be dramatically illegal. What worked in wartime in rice paddies in Vietnam – in the 20th Century, when nobody from the West was looking or wanted to remember, will probably not work in international trade in the 21st century. The writing is “on the wall,” in the Biblical sense, for anyone to read…
TTO that was an excellent analysis and we thank you for the intensity of your statement, a true paradigm of dynamic speech. But please use some paragraph formatting next time, it hurts the eyes! 😀
Reminds me of the guy who tried to patent the “click” back in the late 90’s.
Could you imagine patenting the click? LOL
What about the double-click and right-click? 😀
This is not true!
Of course it is true. It’s true parody. Have you seen GoDaddy’s range of patents? They have patented extended WHOIS, among them. So typing a URL can be patented as well. You’re not safe. Nobody is 😀
Sounds like Ol’ Bob has been hitting the bong again. Only a stoner would come up with an idea like this.
I miss the Godaddy … Puppy Farm Commercial ….. I was going to get one for Xmas