Duck.com (not the search engine you might expect)
duck.com
duck.com
That said, if they wanted to be more neighborly they could put up a landing page like this one instead: http://omnisio.com/ (also a company that was acquired by google/youtube).
Of course, Google could provide a disambiguation link to DDG on that page, but I can't honestly see any reason why they would or should provide a competitor with free advertising. They could sell the domain, but I can't see any reason why they would or should set an affordable price for a highly-brandable generic four letter domain name.
tl;dr no reason (IMHO) it should point to Google search -- it's just confusing people.
The "Google is evil" trend may be an overreaction to those comments, but it embodies a sane criticism in my opinion. It gives a counterpart to the awkward "Google is my big brother"
I guess it's becoming fashionable to think of Google as the new Microsoft. Sometimes it's fair. In this case, it's not.
How is my question consistent with things people have said about Microsoft? It's not when they bought it, it's how they reacted to Gabriel contacting them about it.
And the timing of it definitely matters. It shows their decision to acquire the domain was not influenced by competition.
As for how they reacted to Gabriel, I'm not sure what their specific reaction was but I probably wouldn't give up a 1-word, 4-letter domain regardless of the state of the competition. The fact that the competition decided to name their company something I own would be unfortunate for them. Too bad. So sad. SOL.
Why are you so aggressively set on defending Google when I'm not really even attacking them?
With your statement, you're implying malicious intent. I'm stating that I don't see it together with substance to back up my statement. That's not "aggressively set on defending Google." That's simply trying to clearly make an argument.
No aggression here related to this topic :)
And when people enter duck.com and go to Google, are people thinking they are at DDG? Doubtful. Anyone who uses DDG knows they went to the wrong site by mistake.
Furthermore, nitrogen is not epi0Bauqu.
Well, you'll be happy to know I'll be ignoring anything you post from now on. I certainly won't engage with someone who can't tell the difference between honest fundamental disagreement and trolling.
And it's not a matter of stupidity, especially before a user has a solid idea of what DDG is.
Hence my question. All he said was "consistent". What does that mean? It's not a quantifiable unit. He could get a complaint every minute, or he could get one every day, or every year, all of these would be "consistent", but their meaning differs vastly.
> And it's not a matter of stupidity, especially before a user has a solid idea of what DDG is.
If their response to being told about a thing called "duck duck go" is to go to a web browser and type in "duck.com", it's stupidity. They're treating a domain name as a "do what I mean" mechanism. It's not. It's an address.
If I hear the restaurant is at "123 <garbled>", is the correct solution to go to building numbered "123" on the nearest street and get angry when it's not the restaurant?
Also, consistent usually means uncontested and unambiguous, rather than representing some quantity.
Edit: DDG's url is not actually duck.co, that's just the community url.
They should just donate the domain to DuckDuckGo if only to squash conspiracy theorists.
No, it should go to Black Duck Software. Or perhaps Duck Records. Actually, it should go to Disney. Duck Guides Inc.? How about Automatic Duck Inc.? Or perhaps redirect to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duck ? There's a Flying Duck Inc. in Berkeley, heaven only knows what they do, but they've existed since 1998, why don't they get the domain?
Domain Name: DUCK.COM
Registrar: MARKMONITOR INC.
Whois Server: whois.markmonitor.com
Referral URL: http://www.markmonitor.com
Name Server: NS1.GOOGLE.COM
Name Server: NS2.GOOGLE.COM
Name Server: NS3.GOOGLE.COM
Name Server: NS4.GOOGLE.COM
Status: clientDeleteProhibited
Status: clientTransferProhibited
Status: clientUpdateProhibited
Updated Date: 19-nov-2010
Creation Date: 23-feb-1995
Expiration Date: 24-feb-2015
They should offload the domain to DDG, redirect it while maintaining ownership, or start a service named duck something that's unrelated to search and use it for that.
(1) the manner in which the domain name(s) is/are identical or confusingly similar to a trademark or service mark in which the Complainant has rights; and
(2) why the Respondent (domain-name holder) should be considered as having no rights or legitimate interests in respect of the domain name(s) that is/are the subject of the complaint; and
(3) why the domain name(s) should be considered as having been registered and being used in bad faith
Domain squatting has nothing to do with who had it first.
You may not like it, but downvoting me doesn't change it.
EDIT: Really, only #2 is questionable in this case. That is why UDRP arbitration might be worthwhile.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_moron_in_a_hurry
> (2) why the Respondent (domain-name holder) should be considered as having no rights or legitimate interests in respect of the domain name(s) that is/are the subject of the complaint; and
They were called Duck. Their early codecs were often referred to as Duck. Assorted patents are still assigned to The Duck Corporation. Why did DDG decide to infringe on their trademark?
> (3) why the domain name(s) should be considered as having been registered and being used in bad faith
It was registered by The Duck Corporation, and pointed to their home page. That corporation has eventually wound up as part of Google, and the domain now points to Google's home page. Seems pretty straightforward.
> Domain squatting has nothing to do with who had it first.
Trademarks have a lot to do with it. By the way, why is DuckDuckGo infringing on the trademark of the Oregon Ducks? What about Duck® Brand duct tape?
In addition, UDRP is separate from trademarks (mostly), and is just useful when someone is abusing a domain name to confuse your customers.
Lastly it makes me somewhat sad that people seem so shocked when Google does something seemingly evil. You're personifying something that despite all the marketing is by its nature setup solely to most efficiently make money. Google's "don't be evil" is just marketing in that their products inherently require the public's trust to be profitable. I would actually argue that by the nature of their business plan and profits, Google has to be one of the most responsive to scrutiny by the public. In other words, in comparison to other corporations, Google should be one of the easiest to get to change 'evil' actions.
Duck.com belonged to that company, which Google bought.
This Duck.com[2] is from long before DDG existed.
1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TrueMotion_S
2. http://web.archive.org/web/19970209085620/http://www.duck.co...
I actually don't find it to be incredibly evil. There are a number of teams at Google that try to best understand how to best put these domains and assets to use in the interest of Google. They pointed it at search and continue to do so because they have gotten some benefit from it.
Additionally, if Google wasn't getting benefit from this wouldn't it make more sense to point this domain at something WebM related for customer transition?
Pointing On2 at company info makes sense. People typing it would be looking for that company info. People typing "duck" are very unlikely to be looking for anything about the old company called Duck so it should go to the money page.