Posts tagged as:

Icahn

Domain Squatter Portfolio Gets Squeegeed By Verizon

by Jason Wilk on December 24, 2008

  • Verizon has won a $33.2 million settlement from its case against a professional domain squatting company in San Francisco.
  • Like all crooked domain squatters, the San Francisco firm was registering domain names similar to all of Verizon’s trademarks.
  • Verizon claimed they “unlawfully registered at least 663 domain names that were either identical to or confusingly similar to Verizon trademarks,” (WSJ) . The court made the San Francisco company pay $50,000 per domain for ‘bad-faith’ registration.This is not the first time Verizon has won a big case like this.
  • “This case should send a clear message and serve to deter cybersquatters who continue to run businesses for the primary purpose of misleading consumers,” said Sarah Deutsch, Verizon associate general counsel. “
  • Nice to see a company take action against those trying to make a buck off of purchasing similar or mispelled domain names of companies and then placing pay-per-click ads leading to the actual company’s site. This practice, although made illegal in 1999, is also used against famous celebrity names, common people’s names, etc. Have you done a domain search for your own name yet? Chances are someone without your name has purchased it in the hopes that someday or the 10 other people with your name will want to buy it up one day for a premium.

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Damn You Citizen Journalists

by Jason Wilk on December 1, 2008

  • As of yesterday,  it was rumored that Microsoft was in talks to acquire Yahoo’s online search business for $20 billion
  • The news began circulating yesterday morning with London’s TimesOnline story, which then caught fire inside the blogosphere. We had an idea that the story was false, once Ross Levinsohn (a Yahoo CEO candidate) went on record claiming there was “no truth” to the story. However, it was hard to believe one of the top online newspapers would go on a limb to announce a fake story. Well, it is now confirmed that the rumors are false. What does this mean? 
  • It means a couple things. First, it shows that false citizen journalism is hitting a new high. With professional blogs and newspapers all over the world fighting for breaking stories, it seems to have become kosher to publish stories that may have any particle of truth behind them. We have seen this with multiple articles inside the tech community and it has become just as rampant outside of tech. Here are just a few of the major fake stories coming out of major sources in the last month. 
  • Most disappointing was how this fake news froze Yahoo’s stock price this morning. The stock was paced to surge with Carl ICahn’s news of purchasing 6.8 billion new shares and speculation of a new CEO announcement coming within days. The Microsoft news only flattened the spirits of many investors when its validity was crushed so quickly. Damn you citizen journalists with your Flip camcorders and your internet connections. 
  • What is going to be the standard of responsibility to prevent fake stories from circulating in the news? It seems like a new fake story comes out just about every few days now, and they are hitting headlines. So, is the online news space turning into the National Inquirer or will it try to sift through the obvious trash before going forth with stories? That Yahoo story smelled funny from the first time I read it. From now on, let’s solve these problems by beginning a rumor headline with ‘Rumor Alert’, because that what it was.  

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Why Yahoo Is A Good Buy Right Now

by Jason Wilk on November 28, 2008

  • Carl Icahn just bought another 6.8 million shares of Yahoo this week bringing his share of Yahoo to just under 5%.
  • He paid around $9.87, which is less than 1/3 of what he paid last year. He now controls 3 seats on the board and is said to be active in the role of looking for Jerry Yang’s replacement.
  • What does this mean? Well, it doesn’t mean that they have found a CEO replacement (if so, it would be insider trading since the news isn’t public). But, what it does mean is that Icahn is bullish that their selection pool for the CEO process is strong and he knows the news will push the stock price higher. With such a down economy, their chances of finding powerful talent to take over the position is much greater. Yahoo shares will be jumping up Monday following Icahn’s speculative purchase and possibly even greater later in the week if they find the replacement.

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Hottest CEO Wives In The Tech World

by Jason Wilk on September 24, 2008

  • Asylum Magazine published their annual hottest 15 CEO Wives. Here are the Tech CEO’s that made it on the list:
    • #2. Rupert Murdoch’s wife Wendi Deng (pictured)
    • #4 Larry Ellisson’s wife Melanie Craft
    • #8 Carl Icahn’s wife Gail Golden
    • #11 Larry Page’s wife Lucy Southworth.

A tiny exclusive.

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