"We feel good about our chances of prevailing."
- BoobleBob
Google Cops A Feel. Google attorneys recently issued a "
cease and desist" letter to adult search site Booble, challenging Booble's parody claims. Booble attorneys shot back a response,
defending the parody and denying Google's demands for the Booble domain.
Booble owner "Bob," who runs a "very successful" website design firm in New York, spoke with us today regarding the events thus far, and expressed his hopes for the outcome of what may or may not become a legal battle with an online giant.
"I think we're dealing with the first knee jerk response that a company would make to a suspected infringement," Bob said. "That's how that letter read to me."
How Far Will Booble Go? When asked how far he's willing to go if Google brought Booble to court, Bob said, "The good news is we have really good lawyers and we're making enough money to pay for them. The money the porn on the site is generating will go to fight Google."
Is Google Groping? Trademark Attorney Martin Schwimmer said
in this article that "this is a [Google] competitor. It's another search engine."
Bob dismisses these claims. "I certainly don't think Google's entitled to any kind of injunctive relief. I don't think they can go to a judge and show how we're killing their business and that we've got to be stopped. We're just not that big."
Booble currently has around 6,000 listed sites. Google has well over 3 billion.
Mr. Schwimmer also argued that because the site "doesn't comment on the entity it's satirizing," it's not a parody.
Bob says his parody comments on the fact that so many people search Google for adult content, that Google is, in essence, Booble. Google might ask, however, if he's commenting on Google or on the online community's ravenous consumption of adult content.
In regards to possible non-legal outcomes, he said, "if Google wants to send me a letter that says 'we'll be ok if you do X Y and Z' I think that would be a great outcome. The one thing I'm not going to do is to hand over the Booble.com domain name."
Booble Will Prevail. "We feel good about our chances of prevailing," Bob said. "I would be shocked, given how little is at stake, that Google would want to take it that far."
So what's Bob's outlook?
"We have a wait and see attitude. Based on the level of interest though I'm not just going to shut it down. I think we'll keep on teasing Google. We're going to do something fun for Valentine's day," Bob said, referring to Google's
holiday-themed logo embellishments.
Booble Speaks: We Will Prevail
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