Nissan.com (is not owned by Nissan the car company) | Hacker News Reader

Nissan.com (is not owned by Nissan the car company)

nissan.com

112 pointsArubis102 comments

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...

Well, selling a website because you don't personally care very much about owning it doesn't necessarily mean someone is unprincipled. Most people don't have a principle of being more attached to their name than millions of dollars. I certainly don't!

The backstory [1] is than Nissan spent years being corporate jackasses to this guy in international legal systems, when he refused to sell.

A few million for something I don't care about? Sure!

A few million foregone to piss off a corporation who wronged a relative and tried to steal what was rightfully his? No question: nope. And I'd dedicate the page to reasons you shouldn't buy a Nissan.

[1] https://jalopnik.com/uzi-nissan-spent-8-years-fighting-the-c...

A few million to let go of a domain name? I'd compromise those principles in a heartbeat and move the site to a different domain.

Why would the car maker even care about paying top dollar for the domain at this point?

Same reason Tesla bought tesla.com for $11m. Same reason not owning steam.com gives Valve grief.

They also don't even own valve.com

valve.com states that its estimated worth is $500k-$750k so presumably valve just doesn't care to buy it, that amount of money is peanuts to them.

Yeah I don’t think they would buy it. It’d just result in bad press.

"All press is good press."

Remember getfirefox.com?

Can you imagine how many people type nissan.com into their browser? And how niche that press release would be?

> Can you imagine how many people type nissan.com into their browser?

I bet it’s not that many.

When’s the last time you entered a URL in the address bar directly for a website you’d never been to?

I don’t even trust myself to not have an accidental typo so if it’s not a bookmark or copy/paste from an external source, it goes through a search engine.

I think people do it more than you'd guess; especially the case where they have been to the correct Nissan site recently, didn't notice the URL, and then are navigating back quickly.

I have done that within the last few years: I was attempting to install Steam on a new machine, and forgot the address is actually "store.steampowered.com".

My experience/observation has been the opposite. Most users don't even know there is a "location bar" they can put URLs into. The search box/bar is all there is, they will enter a company name and click on the first search result in preference to entering any URL no matter how simple, they don't even know they can enter a URL in a different way than executing a google search for it.

Depends on how Uzi Nissan’s will/estate is set up, whether the domain has been left to a particular heir or is simply part of the overall estate to be split among heirs — in which case you’d probably need to set up a corporate structure so that heirs can own shares of the company owning the domain. Otherwise liquidation is likely. This is often how long term RE holdings or family businesses get sold.

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.

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

Good thing we don't have to choose!

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?

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.

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.

Even random is better than divine right, I think.

Having an aristocratic title that passes down is much worse than some rich dude leaving money because that lasts hundreds of years. And gets taxed.

I also disagree with hereditary titles.

But in a practical sense, I also don't think the next generation of Bezo's are going to be anything but obscenely wealthy. And the generation after that. And after that.

While the hereditary title was a bad idea, they also had turnover too.

So I think it is much of a muchness.

Yes, Bezos’ kids will be wealthy and even in 500 years they will be wealthy (look at J&J, Rockefeller, Canegie, etc) but that’s still better than the earldoms and such in the UK where there’s still massive chunks of land centuries later controlled only because of birth. Turnover was based on royal decree, not bankruptcy/ legal transfer/etc

So not saying trillionaires are perfect, just that they have fewer flaws than aristocracy.

That's... a super interesting perspective. I'm super intrigued and think you're onto something.

In my corner of the culture, I suspect a lot of this has to with - to be blunt, and harsh - intergenerational bigotry. There are so, so many that I know who have had to cut out their blood family because of shit treatment and behavior.

Definitely not the only thing tho. I get along great with my family, and we don't have much like this going on - some ideas and values, but it's not like I was raised with a family motto or anything like that.

I don't know enough of the wealthy / super wealthy, and those that I do know I don't think I know well enough, but I get the impression that their families DO actually still do this. The family itself is some form of legal entity, and parents actively invest in their kids in a way that's... different. AFAIK that's mostly just because they actually can - independently wealthy AND independently successful means you don't lose much if you go "unemployed" in order to raise kids.

I say all this not to disparage anything, but to brainstorm things to aim for in my own life...

how old was he? cannot find that info anywhere

What would you say is the principle involved for holding on to nissan.com instead of selling it for millions?

What principle? It's just a domain name. They shouldn't be compelled to sell it if they don't want to, but they also shouldn't be compelled to keep it if they don't want to.

Selling it is not inherently bad. Especially since it seems they can use some financial help. There is a GoFundMe page to support his family.

https://www.gofundme.com/f/Uzi-Nissan

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.

My experience is that lots of people often secretly sympathize. Including the lawyers involved. It's pretty easy to throw a case.

I had zero power or influence in that situation. I probably wouldn't even have been the person to update the web server configuration if they had got the domain (although, in those days, there were a lot of static HTML pages and Flash content that would have needed updating).

You didn't, but I'm just saying others involved did. I'm not sure much of anyone involved on the Nissan side actually cared if Nissan won, except for maybe one or two very senior leaders in Japan, and perhaps not even that.

It makes a big difference in a fight.

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.

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...

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

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...

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

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.)

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.

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

See: https://www.gofundme.com/f/Uzi-Nissan

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

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.

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

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”

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.

First and only when I tried.

Makey Makey for anyone to lazy to Google

Seems like a nice product line. Now because I would never buy from a shitty company like them, where else could i look for stuff like this?

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

It's more usable than a lot of sites that are completely bloated.

It's ironic given that one of the services they apparently offer is website development

I was about to point that out as well. Given the website apparently belongs to a computer business and web development provider, the presentation is, lets say, not optimal of todays standards.

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.

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

No use for the name? He bought it because he had a use for it, and used it till the day he died.

There are many other examples you could have used, but not this one. He was not a squatter.

> 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.

No use for the name? It’s his own last name and he ran a computer consultancy from the website. It wasn’t until Nissan began targeting him that he turned it towards activism, which one might argue is of even greater use.

His company still sells services to people.

It was registered in 1994. Trying to re-do 26 years of configurations and email addresses sounds like a pain in the ass. I'm sure he (or his family) still gets email there.

Just because someone wants something more doesn't mean they should automatically get it.

Different circumstance but reminds me of the battle Microsoft had with Mike Rowe over mikerowesoft.com https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_v._MikeRoweSoft

mikerowesoft.com still redirects to microsoft.com

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.

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

https://jalopnik.com/uzi-nissan-internet-domain-owner-who-fo...

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/

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

> 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

>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.

I think because the owner died recently from Covid-19.

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

what's your point?

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

when did they start this promotion?

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.

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

OK.

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)

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.

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

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edith_Macefield

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).

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.

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.

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

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

Or that he's taking a principled stand.

I think it's a principled stance. I think Nissan made an aggressive move to take it over in early days and it pissed him off.

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

He held out until he passed away.

Trying to profit on the mark is what caused Ford to win a lawsuit over a domain auction site that was selling volvoguy.com, jaguarenthusiastsclub.com, vintagevolvos.com, and others. “bad faith intent to profit” cited in the ruling.

They went after a lot of sites with Volvo in the name - VolvoWorld.com became VlvWorld.com. They have since closed, but they sold parts.

https://www.brickboard.com/AWD/volvo/808447/volvoworldcom_of...

http://web.archive.org/web/20040216120352/http://www.vlvworl...

He's dead now

neither is Square.com owned by Square.

They actually appear to own square.com, though it redirects to squareup.com

they lease it

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

square the software company uses square enix domain.

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?

Unfortunately for some people, principles might be all they have left.

> 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?

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.

This is because of a court ruling:

The district court issued a final Judgment (PDF) allowing Nissan Computer to keep its nissan.com and nissan.net domain names, but restricted our rights to do the following: 1. Posting Commercial content at nissan.com and nissan.net; 2. Posting advertising or permitting advertising to be posted by third parties at nissan.com and nissan.net; 3. Posting disparaging remarks or negative commentary regarding Nissan Motor Co., Ltd. or Nissan North America, Inc. at nissan.com and nissan.net; 4. Placing, on nissan.com or nissan.net, links to other websites containing commercial content, including advertising; and 5. Placing, on nissan.com or nissan.net, links to other websites containing disparaging remarks or negative commentary regarding Nissan Motor Co., Ltd. or Nissan North America.

https://www.digest.com/Big_Story.php

Wow, it's totally stupid to have a court ruling essentially restricting your free speech on your own domain name.

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