
Nissan.com (is not owned by Nissan the car company) - Arubis
https://nissan.com/
======
woofie11
Uzi Nissan just died of COVID19. It will be interesting to see if his
relatives stick to his principals, and hold onto the web site in memory of
him, or make millions and sell to Nissan.

I hope they hold on.

I predict someone will eventually sell, though. Principled people are few and
far between.

[https://www.autonews.com/automakers-suppliers/uzi-nissan-
who...](https://www.autonews.com/automakers-suppliers/uzi-nissan-who-beat-
nissan-dies-covid)

~~~
jacobwilliamroy
It kind of paints a dark picture. The family unit used to be like a person who
never died. Wealth, ideas, skills, values all would be passed down and
developed over time. Now the corporations can outlive us, they can wait. Our
families are weaker than the corporations. That scares me.

~~~
JackFr
Many people find corporations more democratic than an aristocracy. I’d rather
have AMZN on NASDAQ than have Lord Bezos become a trillionaire.

~~~
CarbyAu
Your second sentence, what's the difference?

Isn't he likely going to be the next trillionaire anyway, with or without the
title of Lord?

~~~
philplckthun
Also is there some magical step once you’re a trillionaire? Surely at this
point it doesn’t make a difference anymore exactly how rich the guy is.

~~~
woofie11
Nope. There are classes among the ultrawealthy too:

* Lower-class ultrawealthy have billions on paper, but no liquidity. Think of a founder sitting on a pre-IPO unicorn.

* Jeff Bezos is lower-middle-class ultrawealthy. He has wealth, but he can't use it, since it's locked up in Amazon. If he sold it all, Amazon stock would collapse.

* Bill Gates is middle-class rich. He has "free" wealth which he can do with as he pleases.

* Upper-class wealthy have wealth in political structures (think Saudi princes for a visible example, or low-key formerly noble European families who hold massive amounts of land). Their wealth is now structured so it can survive economic collapses, wars, and so on, and they can command real power through global political influence.

It's really about how much you can use your wealth for power and influence.

------
angst_ridden
In the 90s, I worked for a web firm that did the Nissan Motors USA customer-
facing web sites. The management at Nissan USA were always sure we'd be
switching to the nissan.com domain "any day now." It was impressive how much
firepower they expended on Uzi Nissan, and how he was able to fight and hold
on by a thread. I secretly sympathized with him, although professionally I had
to pretend that the "nissanusa.com" domain was an abomination.

~~~
mleo
The 90s and the days of running websites on Silicon Graphics.

There seemingly was some sort of lessen learned since Z.com was acquired more
easily before the relaunch of the Z. Though the domain seems to have since
been sold to another company.

~~~
alasdair_
I could have sworn that single letter domain names were not allowed and that
all domains must be at least two letters (for .com anyway).

Turns out that a few single letter domains were grandfathered in.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single-letter_second-
level_dom...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single-letter_second-level_domain)

I'm glad to be one of the lucky 10,000 today!

------
robinwa
Nissan tried to sue Uzi Nissan, the owner of the domain, for cyber-squatting
and lost...[1]

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nissan_Motors_v._Nissan_Comput...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nissan_Motors_v._Nissan_Computer)

~~~
thrwn_frthr_awy
I believe Ford sued the owner of volvoguy.com and won.

~~~
dhosek
I suspect, though that the owner of volvoguy.com wasn't named Joe Volvoguy. It
also appears that volvoguy.com is currently a Chinese language website (which
Google says simply tells me that service is not available in my area). On the
other hand, Ford hasn't owned Volvo in years and the current owners are a
Chinese holding company so who knows? (And Volvo Cars, formerly owned by Ford
and now Geely Holding Corp, is not to be confused with the publicly traded AB
Volvo which makes heavy trucks and which owned Volvo Cars before selling that
division to Ford.)

~~~
braythwayt
Yes, big difference between swedishbrickguy.com and volvoguy.com.

Up here in the People's Republic of Kanuckistan, Canadian Tire even won a case
with someone over crappytire.com. I thought that was heinous, personally, but
INAL, so I am biting my tongue and not claiming that the judge erred in law.

------
ahale13
Sadly the owner of the domain passed away from Covid-19.

See: [https://www.gofundme.com/f/Uzi-Nissan](https://www.gofundme.com/f/Uzi-
Nissan)

~~~
polartx
Sitting on the Nissan domain, almost certainly valued at much more than the
$50k they’re seeking, it seems out of place to be cyber-panhandling

------
schappim
I’m amazed that Nissan Motors didn’t eventually get the domain. Normally with
sufficient $$$, you can bleed a smaller opponent dry in court.

My company had something similar happen to us. We were taken to the Federal
Court of Australia by a Florida based educational hardware company in part
over a domain.

The Australian domain we had, was purchased prior to their registration of
Australian trademarks and incorporation of their company.

~~~
searchableguy
What was the outcome? Is it possible to mention the educational hardware
company?

~~~
schappim
We no longer own a domain that we previously legitimately owned.

I won’t mention the complainant's name, however, you gotta respect their
(lawful evil?) tactics.

Taking a previously open-source product manufactured by (the awesome) SparkFun
Electronics, “un-open-sourcing” the product, and moving the manufacturing away
from the USA to China.

When SparkFun ceased manufacturing the product, the result was that schools in
my region are now charged more for this line of products. The complainant's
restrictions in their reseller agreements also prevent resellers from selling
any competing products.

The complainant trademarked the name of the open-source hardware and obtained
a second trademark (in the quoted category below[1]). I am not a lawyer, but
it could mean that anyone commercially teaching (hear deriving income directly
or indirectly) or creating educational content that incorporates the
trademarked term could potentially be violating the trademark.

[1] “Conducting workshops and seminars in science, technology, engineering and
mathematics (STEM) education; developing education lesson plans for others in
the field of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM)
education; educational services, namely, conducting informal programs in the
fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education,
using on-line activities and interactive exhibits, and printable materials
distributed therewith”

~~~
d_meeze
I also have to respect your chaotic neutral tactics by posting their trademark
wording in its entirety, hence guaranteeing they're the first search hit for
that phrase.

~~~
Talanes
First and only when I tried.

------
dpc_pw
I love how crappy this website is. :D . No, not minimalistic, or old school.
Just crappy, with terrible usability. :D

~~~
30minAdayHN
It was from the days where people self hosted and used to put up a websites
for fun

~~~
Pfhreak
It's a shame there are no more people putting up fun websites anywhere. /s

~~~
runbyfruity
Oh, they are, but they're drowned out by "look at this create-react-app
hackathon project I made! VCs pls give me a series A thx". Alas, the web is
now a profit engine first.

~~~
baddox
A create-react-app hackathon project is absolutely a valid instance of
"putting up websites for fun."

~~~
metiscus
I agree with you. I believe that having fun is subjective. I've actually done
both things mentioned for fun. I also had the bonus fun of learning a new
thing to boot.

------
ecf
This story represents everything that’s wrong with domains.

On one hand, you have someone with absolutely no use for the the name holding
out against an entity that everyone in the world would assume has ownership of
it.

On the other hand, you have a company that tried to strong arm the small
domain owner in court.

~~~
sokoloff
> On one hand, you have someone with absolutely no use for the the name

How sure are you that they have absolutely no use for the name? If he gets his
email and runs family email accounts at name@nissan.com, that's a valid use
for the domain, IMO.

------
rising-sky
Different circumstance but reminds me of the battle Microsoft had with Mike
Rowe over mikerowesoft.com
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_v._MikeRoweSoft](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_v._MikeRoweSoft)

mikerowesoft.com still redirects to microsoft.com

------
stuartd
This is the story as I read it the other day:

[https://jalopnik.com/uzi-nissan-internet-domain-owner-who-
fo...](https://jalopnik.com/uzi-nissan-internet-domain-owner-who-fought-
nissan-in-1844535615)

------
slg
This reminds me of the story of the pair of twins that own twins.com who
refused to sell it to Major League Baseball and the Minnesota Twins.

[https://grantland.com/features/the-website-mlb-couldnt-
buy/](https://grantland.com/features/the-website-mlb-couldnt-buy/)

------
30minAdayHN
I remember reading the story by the domain owner how nissan tried to screw him
with law suit. This is pretty old case and I wonder why it popped up to the
top:
[https://www.digest.com/Big_Story.php](https://www.digest.com/Big_Story.php)

~~~
30minAdayHN
> FEBRUARY - 2008, Ruling on Attorneys' Fees and Final Judgment. The court has
> issued a Ruling[1] addressing these remaining issues:

1\. Nissan Motor is NOT entitled to attorneys' fees.

2\. Nissan Computer is entitled to cost under rule 68.

The court ordered NMC to pay $58,000 as cost under rule 68, this is less than
2% of what the cost was to defend this case.

[1] Ruling:
[https://www.digest.com/images/FinalJudgment2008.pdf](https://www.digest.com/images/FinalJudgment2008.pdf)

~~~
alasdair_
>this is less than 2% of what the cost was to defend this case

Which is ridiculous. The whole point of a legal system is to ensure that even
the weak can exist without being bullied by the strong.

------
jackvalentine
If you go to nissanusa.com now, they're selling a Sentra with the tag 'Refuse
to compromise'.

~~~
coronadisaster
what's your point?

~~~
jackvalentine
It's an amusing reflection on both Nissan and Uzi's sticking to their
positions.

~~~
coronadisaster
when did they start this promotion?

~~~
jackvalentine
Mate, it's clearly not directly related and I suggest you don't read too much
in to my comment. It's just a bit of fun.

~~~
coronadisaster
Thats fine... But it would be really screwed up if it was related at all

~~~
jackvalentine
OK.

------
BurningFrog
Nissan is also a river in southern Sweden running through the city of
Halmstad.

I assume that name is older than the car company.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nissan_(river)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nissan_\(river\))

~~~
dhosek
Japanese companies often have long and convoluted histories (Nintendo was
founded in the 19th century as a maker of playing cards and at various times
sold food and was a taxi company). Nissan was founded in 1928 as an offshoot
of a mining company and until the Japanese real estate crash of the early
1990s was primarily a real estate company which also made cars. But yes, the
river name is still probably older than the company.

------
TheSpiciestDev
This reminds me of the steam.com domain - for the longest time I've wondered
what the relationship is like between the owner and Valve Corporation...

It used to have an actual page, it looks like it's just a registered domain
now with a page that times out.

------
dag11
This feels like the web equivalent of an Edith Macefield house.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edith_Macefield](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edith_Macefield)

------
gazzini
This brings a smile to my face. You don’t always need “F __* you” in order to
say “F __* you”.

I nearly want to collocate a server with them, just for the heck of it (see
their “services” page).

------
asveikau
I once saw a license plate frame of a car dealership called "Nissani
Brothers". It was not on a Nissan. Somehow I figured they might rather be
selling Nissans.

------
calmworm
I’ve always liked this story and have been periodically checking the domain
for many years. I recall reading the site updates as it was unfolding. Sad he
died.

------
Seb-C
I did not expect to see a site (legitimately) using an HTML 3.2 DOCTYPE in
2020.

------
x87678r
That site just looks like he's holding out for more money.

~~~
eli
It’s been 20 years. I don’t think he’s bluffing for more money.

~~~
ilaksh
He held out until he passed away.

------
ThomPete
neither is Square.com owned by Square.

~~~
Pfhreak
Square the software company that makes games? Or Square the software company
that makes payment processing?

~~~
ThomPete
square the software company uses square enix domain.

------
supernova87a
Their only purpose seems to be to occupy this domain to counter Nissan the car
company. Their own actual business doesn't look that remarkable or even
successful. It has eclipsed the purpose of existence almost.

Maybe time to declare this isn't worth the trouble in life, and there are
better things to spend effort on? What are you winning? Sell, and make a buck
while you can. There isn't much principled fight to be gained here, is there?

~~~
jagged-chisel
> Their only purpose seems to be to occupy this domain to counter Nissan the
> car company.

It's the guy's name. He registered the domain 5 years before Nissan Motor
Company showed interest. He seems to have started businesses further and
further from "automobiles" so that he wouldn't have a trademark dispute with
the car company.

> Their own actual business doesn't look that remarkable or even successful.

Is that the measure by which someone should keep their property?

~~~
baddox
It's lots of people's names, of course. I don't agree that domains should be
redistributed based continuously purely on "what's the biggest company with
this name," but I also don't like how much momentum you get just from being
interested in the web in the 90s and picking up the juicy domain names. I
don't have a great solution, but I don't think the status quo does a great job
of allocating domain names with either economic efficiency or with user-
friendliness in mind. Of course, one could certainly argue that domain names
are much less important now that most people get their content either directly
from the massive media/social networking websites or indirectly from Google
searches.

