
Comcast taking action against Comcastroturf.com for trademark infringement - dabber
https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/6cvg82/comcast_is_trying_to_censor_our_pronet_neutrality/
======
yebyen
Did I miss the thread where we are gonna discuss the actual issue addressed by
Comcastroturf, that someone (maybe not Comcast, I'll concede) is spamming a
gazillion comments using actual peoples' names and they are totally not
legitimate?

I am not on the list, but I looked up 7 members of my family and four of them
are, several of them showing up more than once. Including my 3-year-old
nephew, who I am sure is very smart but definitely did not submit comments to
the FCC in support of repealing Net Neutrality. (And if he did, he would not
use wording identical to hundreds of thousands of other commenters.
/totallynotrobots/)

Maybe there's nothing actually novel or surprising to discuss in it there, but
I feel like covering the issue this way is absolutely burying the lede a bit.

~~~
sp332
Did you check the address on the comment to make sure it was the same person?
Because I don't see how Comcast would even have the name of a 3-year-old.

~~~
yebyen
None of the addresses matched at all, at least for my family members.

His parents post to Facebook, I don't know if that's the connection, but my
nephew's name is definitely out there on the Internet, so I searched for him
and saw two identical posts in his name from different states.

(It's probably a common name and I would concede there, but the comments match
the regex formula[1] that's in the Reddit thread exactly, they are definitely
not legitimate comments.)

[1]:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/6cvg82/comcast_...](https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/6cvg82/comcast_is_trying_to_censor_our_pronet_neutrality/dhxyjwg/)

Have you found one that matches exactly both name and address? Because I
haven't found any, but I'm still convinced that something is rotten here in
Denmark. (All of these family members never were Comcast customers or lived in
Comcast service areas, so like I said, I'm not at all convinced this is some
kind of Comcast data breach. Just that some kind of massive fraud is being
perpetrated, by someone in favor of repealing NN.)

I heard a few people say that they found exact matches for names and
addresses, but I haven't seen anyone say for sure that they simultaneously
matched a real person's name with an address that they actually occupied. I
don't think they're doing that.

I did see a comment from someone who looked up their town, found a lot of
names they recognized, tried matching them to any county records and came up
empty (eg. nobody by that name submitting those comments paid property taxes
at the address.)

~~~
sp332
According to [http://kdvr.com/2017/05/14/7000-coloradans-names-
addresses-u...](http://kdvr.com/2017/05/14/7000-coloradans-names-addresses-
used-to-post-fake-comments-about-government-decision/) the addresses seemed to
be real. Also I thought the comments were appearing to come from Comcast
subscribers, but according to [http://jeffreyfossett.com/2017/05/13/fcc-
filings.html](http://jeffreyfossett.com/2017/05/13/fcc-filings.html) it's
coming from data breaches instead.

~~~
yebyen
That's interesting. Thank you.

As a counter-example to the Comcast breach angle, I am a Comcast subscriber
and my name was not used. But my wife's maiden name is more common and it was
used, more than once. (I have a very un-common name and it was unlikely to be
on the breach list unless it was a genuine match.)

------
wand3r
They should respond like slutsofinstagram.com did (slutsof in stagram) which
was a children's story. I don't understand what Comcast is so mad about:

    
    
        Com C AstroTurf
    

Clearly Communications Companies Astroturfing was too long for a domain. so
they shortened it to ComCAstroturf. What's the issue?

~~~
tzs
The claim of slutsofinstagram.com that it is just a coincidence is bolstered
by the fact that the site's content does not mention Instagram and what the
site purports to be about has no connection to Instagram. If Instagram did not
exist, slutsofinstagram.com could still make sense.

Comcastastroturf.com's content is about the industry Comcast is in, and
actually explicitly mentions Comcast. That makes a slutsofinstagram excuse
much harder.

~~~
wand3r
Comcast is a portmanteau of communication and broadcast. So:

> Comcastastroturf.com's content is about the industry Comcast is in

So yes "communications broadcast Corp" would be mentioned in a site about
communication broadcasting corporations BUT to assume that just because they
are the most user-hostile, anti-competitive and vile of the ComC's doesn't
give them some sort of claim over Communication Companies Astroturfing. It's
just a portmanteau of the above 3 words; only 1 of which is found in that
other company ;)

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6stringmerc
Referencing for the sake of Criticism (e.g. Societal Benefit) is robustly
protected by the First Amendment and Fair Use Doctrine, which, unless the
Courts totally fuck it up (it's possible), should be above the basic Trademark
protections.

This situation is basically Monster Cables vs. Blue Jean cables, but without a
snarky, go-fuck-yourself response (yet).

[http://www.bluejeanscable.com/legal/mcp/](http://www.bluejeanscable.com/legal/mcp/)

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ThrowAway123543
Only tangentially related, but some of you may be amused to learn that one
legal standard for whether something infringes a trademark is the "Moron in a
hurry" test: meaning, would a moron in a hurry confuse the thing at question
with the thing claiming infringement?

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

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JustSomeNobody
Why all the hate for Comcast?

They "... continue to strongly support a free and Open Internet and the
preservation of modern, strong, and legally enforceable net neutrality
protections."

[http://corporate.comcast.com/comcast-voices/comcast-
statemen...](http://corporate.comcast.com/comcast-voices/comcast-statement-
supporting-a-free-and-open-internet)

/s

~~~
nthcolumn
Due to the obvious disjoint between what they say and what they do.

~~~
SimbaOnSteroids
/s is the tag for sarcasm ;)

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ItendToDisagree
Why is net neutrality important again? Is anyone ready to respond with a
defense of Comcast's monopoly on high speed ISP service? (edit: in many cities
and locations)

/snark

~~~
djrogers
I don't see how net neutrality regulations will stop trademark and copyright
abuses, which is the case here. Now if Comcast were found to be _hijacking_ or
_blocking_ the site in question, that's a net neutrality issue (as well as a
likely civil issue in a US court).

~~~
skewart
But there is no trademark or copyright abuse here. The domain and website in
question - comcastroturf - is protected under fair use. It's not impersonating
Comcast in any way.

The concern is that if they're willing to be aggressive jerks in a situation
like this, why make it easier for them to actually hijack or block the site?
Of course, net neutrality is about much more than that, but that's how I
understood the direct tie-in here.

~~~
maxerickson
The claim that the domain infringes the trademark can be considered abuse of
trademark law.

~~~
sp332
Trademark fair use is narrower than copyright fair use, but this does seem to
qualify.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use_(U.S._trademark_law)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use_\(U.S._trademark_law\))

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theossuary
I mean, who can really say this isn't a clear-cut trademark issue? They're
using Comcast in their URL. Any sane company would try to fight having their
name associated with this debacle. If I registered "nytimeslies.com" and it
got as much publicity as this site has, do you really think they'd sit idly by
and let their brand be trashed by some idiot on the internet who has no proof
that NYTimes actually, you know, lies?

Can somebody please explain why I'm wrong above, and Comcast is actually
bulling the poor little guy throwing around baseless accusations? To be fair,
I hate Comcast (and support Title II); but I also don't believe in defending
crap like this just because it's targeted at a company I don't like.

~~~
thaumasiotes
There is no protection in the trademark law against people using your
trademark to refer to you. Referring to you is the point of the trademark in
the first place.

This is a clear-cut trademark issue, but it's clear that Comcast is wrong.
Registering and publishing at nytimeslies.com without evidence that the New
York Times actually lies could be a libel issue, but it can't be a trademark
one.

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

~~~
Declanomous
Exactly. Nobody is going to be confused and think comcastroturf is Comcast's
website or a website that Comcast registered.

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MichaelBurge
That seems like more a trademark issue than the issue itself. I think they
have to sue you to defend a trademark, and their lawyers are just overly
conservative. So I don't really blame them for this, though they probably
won't take it all the way to court and fight hard.

The company that sent the notice looks like they have some shell scripts
running in cron that send out scary notices whenever they see a domain that
matches a regex for a client that pays them money:

[https://www.lookingglasscyber.com/products/machine-
readable-...](https://www.lookingglasscyber.com/products/machine-readable-
threat-intelligence/new-domain-data-feed/)

~~~
gkimfl
Techdirt also has this story: [https://tdrt.io/gej](https://tdrt.io/gej)

Re: "have to sue you defend a trademark"

The bully will simply state the oft-repeated excuse that they must bully
according to trademark law, which isn't remotely the case.

[https://tdrt.io/g8w](https://tdrt.io/g8w)

It's the same excuse we see time and time again and it's almost always false.

[https://tdrt.io/fZ5](https://tdrt.io/fZ5)

~~~
MichaelBurge
Your 2nd Techdirt article only provides evidence for my point: The brewery
paid some firm to run a regex and file automated lawsuits, but didn't actually
care about suing them at all. Comcast could be in exactly the same position.

Whether they're right or wrong about that doesn't matter: The topic isn't
reforming trademark law, people are trying to hint that Comcast are
specifically targeting this one domain to shut down the bad PR.

~~~
DarkKomunalec
Do you think baseless legal threats are okay, as long as they're automated?

~~~
MichaelBurge
No.

