Imagine our surprise when we opened The Groton Herald this week to see that it had devoted nearly a full page of its slim edition to an unsigned, misinformed attack editorial. Under the guise of what the piece called “community journalism,” The Groton Herald managed to both attack the publication and staff of The Groton Line, yet never mention us or our online news site by name.
Let’s set the record straight on a number of the editorial’s points. First, we understand the impetus was their staff’s fairly recent discovery that the paper’s management had failed to follow basic business and technology standards. At some point in the distant past, they secured the url http://www.grotonherald.com . Most anyone in business knows that when you secure an online name, that it is a good idea use the real name of your business –- The Groton Herald — with that “The” — as it is at the top of the printed sheet.
The Groton Line did follow this practice. Because The Groton Herald does not have a web site, we went ahead and purchased www.TheGrotonherald.com, with the knowledge that anyone typing t-h-e-g-r-o-t-o in a search engine will hit an auto-fill point – and we thought it should point to a Groton news source. We were not competing with the local print paper… because it has no online presence.
Now, back it up a few years. After years of growing success of the free Talk About Groton email list, which now has just under 1500 subscribers (including other news media), founder Art Campbell began to consider creating an online newspaper that would go beyond opinions and use the best practices of journalism to tell local stories. He approached The Groton Herald about a collaborative venture that would give the less-than-thriving paper a vibrant new online presence. They were not interested. Apparently they felt that online news was not important to the people in town. So we went our own way, and we’re quite happy with where we are.
Several weeks ago, we were approached by The Groton Herald’s editor, Russ Harris, who asked if we would transfer the domain name of thegrotonherald.com to the paper. I responded that we would certainly entertain a sale of the domain. However, we were still interested in a collaboration. Though The Groton Herald’s editorial doesn’t mention it — there are two proposals on the table. Russ Harris chose not to respond to the proposals but rather used his paper to deliver a personal attack. Really, Russ? Is that how community people talk to each other?
This brings me to other points of the two The Groton Herald editorials: that somehow The Groton Line (unnamed) represents “urban” journalism. “Urban,” in The Herald’s lexicon, seems to equate with “evil.” So what’s urban? Art Campbell is the heart and soul of both Talk About and The Groton Line. Art has a journalism and technology background and has lived in town for more than two decades.¬¬ His daughter went through the schools here.
Unlike other media covering our town, Art is a volunteer. Like other volunteers who serve the town — firefighters, board members, selectmen — he wanted to provide a free service. So The Groton Line was born. After two years, The Groton Line frequently has more daily readers than The Groton Herald has in a week. Our weekly average is usually more than 4,000 views. Clearly, folks in Groton want online news.
About that urban thing… I have to believe that Russ has decided to attack me personally (unnamed again). Prior to moving to Groton five years ago — because I fell in love with and married Art — I lived in New Haven, Connecticut — admittedly, a city. I wrote for community papers, and The New York Times,earlier in my career. The editorial seems to equate The New York Times with urban (bad) vs. community (them) journalism. I find this mystifying. For the record, I grew up in a town smaller than Groton and lived there the first 22 years of my life. My father was the (volunteer) fire chief and ambulance driver. I’m a small town girl who had the benefit of working for one of the best newspapers in the country.
The Groton Herald made a mistake in leaving its URL on the table. We’ve offered, several times, to help them correct that unfortunate error. So Russ, be a good neighbor and give us a call.
There is room for everyone in town. We are always impressed by Hiroko Sato’s Groton coverage for The Lowell Sun. The Groton Landmark provides yet another voice. We are proud of The Groton Line, and we’re here to stay.
Betsy Fitzgerald-Campbell
Executive Editor
Good for you, Betsy. It is always good to clear the air – to speak the truth – to “put it out there”. I think The Groton Line is an amazing small town reporting event, Grotonians are so lucky to have your instant news freely available to them.
FWIW, I stopped reading the Groton Herald years ago. It didn’t contain many valid newsworthy articles.
I have a question. My quick online search shows me that The Groton Line has failed to follow standard business and technology practices and has not registered a domain version of every possible permutation and variation of their name, leaving unfilled such domains as groton line, The the groton line, your groton line, my groton line, art campbell’s groton line and possibly other variations of their name.
To fill this foolish gap and correct the naivitee –worse because the groton line does have a website– shouldn’t I register these as my own and further, steer all searches of these names to my web site, even though my actual business has an entirely different name? In doing this wouldn’t I have the right to negotiate to be the groton line’s partner or be paid whatever I think I should charge if the owner of the groton line opts to buy these names from me so I will stop my confusing use of them?
Karen
In planning and launching The Groton Line, we considered the full spectrum of digital reach, including SEO (search engine optimization), Google search algorithms and social media impact, as well as good old-fashioned word-of-mouth.
Thanks for contacting us with your thoughts and marketing insights!
I attempted to make a serious point about this issue in the guise of a rhetorical question asking for moral and legal guidance and I think I failed to make my point. Here in plain English is what I think about this matter, as a private citizen of Groton who has spent many years in publishing.
You can’t appropriate someone else’s name and use it yourself, even if you don’t like the use or non-use of that name by the owner. You can’t ask that person for compensation of any kind if they want you to stop.
Is this what has happened in this case? Please join me as I take a walk through this scene in an attempt to answer that question. The opinions here are my own about the ethics and morality of this situation, not the legal issues. I am not a lawyer and I do not know if or how any laws regarding the practices known as “cyber squatting” or any others might apply.
In their Groton Line op ed piece, the owners of The Groton Line state that in the past they wanted to have a relationship with The Groton Herald, but were turned down. Apparently they assumed this was because the Herald had no interest in an online presence, but it may have been that the Herald was considering their options and thinking about having their own website some day, if and when they could work out the details. This is not known to anyone except the owners of the Herald.
However, the owners of The Groton Line say they discovered that although The Herald did not have a website, they did register a domain name, grotonherald.com. The Groton Line then chose to register that same name, but with a “the” in front of it. And they had that domain name, thegrotonherald.com, steer people to a site that lists The Groton Line as Groton’s newspaper.
You might ask, What’s the harm? Well, this is using someone else’s name for your own purposes. These could include financial gain–not only through some collaboration with the Herald for news articles, features, and photos for which the Herald pays people, or for sale of the name to them, that the owners of The Groton Line have suggested in their op ed piece–but also could involve revenue.
For example, what if a business wants to put an ad in The Groton Herald and searches for thegrotonherald online and finds The Groton Line instead. They might think The Groton Herald has become The Groton Line because the search led them there, and so they might put an ad on The Groton Line instead of continuing to look for The Groton Herald. Or some other outcome. I’m just speculating. What’s important here is that potential revenue for The Groton Herald could be diverted, delayed, or prevented by this misappropriation of their name.
The bottom line is that one party has claimed another party’s good name as something they can “own.” This seems so wrong to me. It makes me very sad to have this happen in our town. I am a big fan of both Talk About Groton and The Groton Herald. I think The Groton Line has served a useful purpose, too, while struggling with the huge job all media face to get enough news and editorial content for their site. It seems to me there’s plenty of room for everyone, under their own names and in their own ways, who want to help people keep in touch with what’s happening in this town.
The biggest surprise is that you opened The Groton Herald at all.
Isn’t that cyber squatting?????
Nope, it’s not.
As we understand it, “cybersquatting”:
First, it applies to the situation where an “exorbitant” fee is asked for the domain for sale. There’s been an offer (from them) and two counter offers from us, which we plan to turn over to benefit a local charity…. and we haven’t received a reply to either counter-offer.
And second, it applies to URLs that are based on trademarks, and The Groton Herald has never trademarked its name.
You’re right Art it is spelled cybersquatting, which gets rejected by my spell checker.
I’m not a lawyer, but I think the law goes a little beyond only registered trademarks. A common theme among the legal sites I’ve checked out is summed up by this quote:
“the extent to which the domain name consists of the legal name of the defendant or a name that is otherwise commonly used to identify the defendant;”
(http://www.keytlaw.com/urls/acpa.htm)
Justify and rationalize this as much as you want, The Groton Herald has been in business for years under that name, you have commandeered, beat them to the punch, whatever you want to call it, you have taken their business name and held it hostage.
Regardless of where this lands legally, this just feels sleazy Art and makes my skin crawl a little. Turning the proceeds to a charity may ease your conscience a little, but it doesn’t mitigate the sleaze factor as far as I’m concerned.
Let’s get this right:
1. The Herald declined to set up a web site for many years.
2. The Herald neglected to purchase the most obvious url for their newspaper.
3. The Herald now wants to have a web site.
4. The Herald it claims it is your fault that they were asleep at the switch and managed to slumber through the past
few decades of online journalism.
5. If only you weren’t “urban journalists” then you never would have purchased any urls (and the Herald could slumber
on into the next decade still ignoring the internet).
News flash for The Groton Herald: Groton is no longer a sleepy country town.
As a native of Groton, and one who remembers the town from the 1950s, I marvel at how urbanized my hometown has become. Gone are the small stores of my youth, replaced by supermarkets. Groton’s population has grown, its lands have been developed, and it is now a whole lot more urban than it was when we celebrated Groton’s Birthday back in 1955.
I doubt that the Herald would like to return to the economy of those bucolic days before Shaw’s and CVS. Even if they would like to, I doubt the Herald could survive with advertising from only those pre-urban Groton businesses.
The issue is not that Groton has become more urban than it was in the 1950s. It is that The Herald seems insistent on blaming others for their own mistakes. Perhaps you should help them out by offering to sell The Herald that url for a whole lot of money? After all, as “urban” journalists, you’d expect to get top dollar.
I am not a lawyer, but I am a law student focusing in Intellectual Property law, including trademarks. Unfortunately for TheGrotonOnline, this seems like it could easily be cybersquatting in violation of the Anti-Cybersquatting Consumer Protection Act (15 USC §1125). That section does not appear to require the registration of the mark at issue; marks can get a form of protection under Trademark Law even if they have not registered under Lanham Act Section 43(a). The ACPA happens to also fall under Section 43. The actions taken by TheGrotonOnline sound like they could qualify as the “bad faith” required by the ACPA.
I do wish Groton news were available more online (I attend law school in North Carolina), and can see the value in TheGrotonOnline’s service. I can’t even read the Groton Herald’s article because it is not available online. That being said, I would rethink whether or not this is a slam dunk legal case and maybe talk to a real lawyer.
Registering the domain name of a competitor and then calling them and asking them to buy it is just simply unethical. I don’t know you personally, but this blog entry or whatever it is makes you sound like a real sleaze-bag. The Groton Herald did you a favor to not put your name. If I were you, I would have stayed anonymous to save face.
You honestly want sympathy for registering the name of someone else’s business, and then you’re surprised when they get annoyed? Seriously?
If you had the facts right, you might have a point.
But you don’t…