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As anticipation over this year’s Super Bowl game mounts, traffic to the official web site, SuperBowl.com, has soared like a field goal kick. For the week that came to an end Jan. 27, at-home web users drove traffic to the site up 399 percent, according to data from Nielsen//NetRatings. In all, 799,000 unique visitors clicked on the site, up from 160,000 during the week ending Jan. 6. Almost a third of the visitors logged onto the section of the site offering information about the actual match between the St. Louis Rams and New England Patriots. Fifteen percent of SuperBowl.com visitors went to pages that featured analysis of the AFC and NFC championship games. Nielsen//Netratings analysts credit the accumulation of traffic to the anticipation of the game that’s been fanned by television coverage.
Judge tosses Ford claim on spoof site link
With penalties for graffiti having escalated to felony status in cities like New York, the internet has become the new hot spot for crude scrawling over the face of corporate America. This week's decision by Eastern Michigan District Court Judge Robert Cleland will keep this avenue alive. The judge rejected a claim by Ford Motor Company that the online magazine 2600 violated its trademark by purchasing the domain name FuckGeneralMotors.com and linking it to Ford's web site. The judge contended the suit was without merit because Ford's trademark was not included in the name of the site but in the link, which means it is buried within the HTML code. "Trademark law does not permit (Ford) to enjoin persons from linking to its homepage simply because it does not like the domain name or other content of the linking web page," he said in his ruling. Ford asserted that the site engaged in unfair business practices and encroached on its trademark. Judge Cleland didn't buy it, saying a hyperlink does not constitute commercial gain for 2600. Ford says it will appeal the decision.
Sotheby’s migrates online services to eBay
Long-established auction house Sotheby’s is throwing in the towel on running its own web site and will fuse its online operations with eBay’s. Starting this fall, Sotheby’s customers will be able to place bids via eBay on auctions taking place at Sotheby’s New York and London branches, in addition to online-only auctions. Sothebys.com went live a little more than two years ago. Despite the fact that $100 million worth of goods were sold on the web site, it never turned a profit, and it wasn’t helped by Sotheby’s other problems, such as an antitrust investigation. The synergy, which ought to be called Sothebay even though it isn’t, could serve eBay well, because the San José, Calif.-based auction site has had a difficult time breaking into the upscale auction world.
FTC and Truste get deputized as spaminators
Truste, a group that certifies web sites that adhere to user privacy protection practices, and the Federal Trade Commission are up in arms about unsolicited promotional emails, aka spam. After all, lots of consumers consider spam annoying, not to mention invasive and unwelcome. While businesses that use spam are required to provide a way for consumers to opt out of receiving it, getting off a spam list often requires a user to share his or her email address–which lets spammers know that it’s a real address, so the recipient just gets more spam. Now both the FTC and Truste are launching onslaughts against spam. Truste has teamed up with the ePrivacy Group to affix commercial email with a certification seal. Advertisement-bearing emails from member companies will carry the new seal, which signifies that the advertiser is committed to consumer privacy. As for the FTC, it plans to embark next week upon a full-fledged investigation into companies that deploy spam.
Money site Motley Fool to charge for boards
Perhaps offering so much content for free was foolish: That’s the conclusion that financial advice site Motley Fool evidently has reached. The site will begin charging an annual fee of $29.95 for use of its message boards by mid-month. Members of the site, who call themselves fools, discuss everything on these boards from hot stock tips to public policy and even health. But Motley Fool doesn’t seem to be pursuing the new strategy wholeheartedly. It is giving free subscriptions to 1,000 members and staffers, and will let people who subscribe to the boards before Feb. 14 have a year of no-cost access. The rest of the site will remain free. Motley Fool, which was started by a pair of brothers without much personal finance experience, also makes money from its books, NPR radio show and newspaper columns, in addition to online classes and financial advising. Still, a big portion of its revenue comes from ad sales, and the site had to fire three-quarters of its staff last year due to a lack of funds.
February 1, 2002 © 2002 Media Life
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