Accordingly, it is Ordered that the <openoffice2009.com>, <openoffice-gratuit.com>, <openoffice09fr.com>, <openoffice-fr.com>, <openoffice-pt.com>, <openoffice-pl.com>, and <openoffice-nl.com> domain names be TRANSFERRED from Respondent to Complainant..

With this ruling, Sun Microsystems has scored a victory against one operator of para-sites – sites which extract money from naive people searching for OpenOffice.org – a free download.

Unfortunately, it is only a small part of the solution. Most people are mis-directed to these para-sites via search engines. There is nothing to stop this operator setting up new domain names and buying keywords on search engines to direct people to the new sites.

As long as search engine operators turn a blind eye to these activities – and indeed generate advertising revenue from them – the problem will not go away. Search engines are big business, and with big business should come big responsibilities to act ethically, and not condone making money out of ignorance.

So, search engine operators – are you “evil” or not?

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 17th, 2010 at 8:52 pm and is filed under OpenOffice.org. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.