
How Mcdonalds.com domain got registered - peter123
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/2.10/mcdonalds.html
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yardie
Ahh, from the era when the entire internet filled a phone book. I bought the
internet yellow pages in 95, 96 and 97. You could physically see exponential
growth as the yellow pages went from the thickness of a small novel to the
thickness of the NYC yellow pages.

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pmjordan
Wow, I never realised there used to be a physical book. Was this basically the
WHOIS data in print form? Just DNS or IP ranges too?

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dantheman
The internet yellow pages was much like the current yellow pages, you navigate
to a category and then it lists all the domains and a small description that
are in that category. Some larger sites would receive a half a page or more
describing them.

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eli
Yup, there were a couple of these print books back in the day. How else were
you supposed to find sites when there was no decent search, no decent
directory, and lots of stuff simply wasn't on the web (yet).

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mtkd
When I was at university I used to moan that cocacola.com and levi.com were
not registered.

I did discuss registering start.com and setting up an index of websites for
brands that had bothered to put a site up - but I was too busy helping on a
Fortran compiler to get round to it. Happy days.

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metachris
interesting, that wired threatened the owners of wire.com (a site to encourage
women to go on the net) into giving up their domain in the early 90s.

> Trademark infringement cases are usually settled through a process I've come
> to think of as Big Footing. The big company with the trademark Big Foots the
> little one, forcing it to give up the name. Usually, this is achieved with a
> Big Foot letter from the big company's lawyer, threatening legal action.

> McDonald's does it. So does Wired. Last year, WIRE, a computer network
> encouraging women to get on the Net, registered the domain name wire.com.
> This magazine's lawyers sent them a Big Foot letter: "That sounds too much
> like Wired's online service, wired.com. Give up the name, or else." WIRE
> became Women's Wire, and retreated to the domain name wwire.com.

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piramida
So what's the story of mcdonalds.com after the registration? Court case?
Anyone knows? This wild 90s had many success stories when companies were
paying to get hold of their trademarked domains since legal system was in
doubt, but it does not seem that this case would have been hard to win in
court.

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SwellJoe
_Williamson said that a year ago, his agency received 300 requests a month for
domain names; now, more than 1,300 requests stream in each month._

1300 requests each month!? How can they possibly handle the deluge of domain
registration requests?

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thwarted
The paperwork moved a lot slower in 1994.

Sidenote: I love how Wired has archived even the graphic that says "on
newsstands now". How quaint. An indication of simpilier times. Daddy, what's a
newsstand?

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SwellJoe
It's interesting how Wired has so frequently been obviously _aware_ of the
monumental shifts going on around them, but rarely able to effectively
capitalize on them. Heck, they owned one of the better search engines at one
time, and several of the best web development and technology destinations on
the web...and yet, it feels kinda lost now. Smartest thing they've done in the
past couple of years was buy reddit, but they need to be making a lot more
acquisitions like that, or internalizing that adventurous spirit.

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te_platt
Kind of like most of the rest of us. I remember watching eBay's IPO and
thinking I should get some of that - but not doing it. Then setting out on my
own in late 1999 only to get crushed in the bubble. Seems like I've been
following the internet for 15 years now, aware of what is going on, able to
make a living, but always just a step behind.

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SwellJoe
Aint that the truth. I started a business in 1999, as well. I didn't really
get crushed, but it wasn't particularly easy street either. I just always
thought of the people behind Wired as being smarter than me since they've had
so many early successes, but I can see how they fail pretty clearly, and it
seems like an even harder fail because they moved with such assurance and
competence in the beginning. I guess the _really_ smart people left.

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mutoxen
On mcdonalds.com, if you click the "Ronald McDonald House Charities" link, you
will read this: "McDonald's is not responsible for the opinions, policies,
statements or practices of any other companies, such as those that may be
expressed in the web site you are entering"!

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dasil003
The Ronald McDonald House has nothing to do with McDonald's other than
sponsorship in exchange for the name, so this message is totally appropriate.

I know this because my mom was the first manager of the Minneapolis RMH that
opened in 1979. In fact I grew up in the house from 1979 to 1989. It no longer
exists but you can see the photo at
<http://www.rmhtwincities.org/history.html>

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mutoxen
OK, but... aren't they sure of the quality of work in RMH? Why near the box to
collect money there isn't this alert?

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dasil003
maybe it's the other way around?

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baddox
"No burger_king.com either."

Wow, was there a point in history when people thought underscores should be
used for spaces in domain names? (or for that matter, that it was even
possible?)

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jdminhbg
First thing I noticed too.

Still no burger_king.com!

