april 1st 2003
08.55 – Welcome to a brand new month here on Arseblog.
Right, well yesterday was the day I did the April Fools gag – after last year’s Kluivert story fooled but a few I said “Next year I’ll have to do it on March 31st so it won’t be so obvious. Of course, telling you about it is fairly obvious……”
And indeed it was – I think I caught a few of you out but most of you realised it was just me messing around. Not however, this poor unfortunate Sp*rs fan.
Which leads me on to my next little subject – when I got in from work last night, I checked my email as I always do. In amongst the assorted crap, offers for Norton Systemworks (why is every fucker in the world trying to sell that at the moment?), toner cartridge offers and so on, I discovered I had a cease and desist order from Google telling me I can no longer use the name ‘arseblogger’.
Since they bought the blogger service, people have speculated as to the impact it might have on the blogging community. Well, here’s your first little taste of it, prepare to call yourself something other than a ‘blogger’ (a blogophiser or blogster or a blogmeister) on your site. Maybe only people who use the new Google powered Blogger are allowed call themselves ‘bloggers’, but at this stage it’s a bit like trying to call my Dyson something other than a Hoover.
I have written to them to ask if they’re really serious about this, but I guess they have to be to send something like that in the first place. I also asked if they wanted me to just stop calling myself ‘arseblogger’ from now on, or do I have to modify all instances of the name site-wide. Anyway, it all just seems a bit cunty to me.
Welcome to the new era of blogging. I’m off to register ‘googlearecunts.blogspot.com’.
arseblogger (hey, I still have 7 days)
Here’s a copy of the email:
Date: Mon, 31 Mar 2003 15:57:42 -0700
From: XXXXXXXX
To: [email protected]
Subject: Use of the term ‘blogger’ – www.arseblog.com
Dear Sir or Madam:
I am corporate counsel for Google Inc. The site referenced above has been
brought to my attention. As this is a clear violation of our copyrights, we
must ask that you disable or substantially modify this page as soon as possible
and confirm in writing that you will not use our registered trademark without our
express written consent. If we do not hear from you within seven days, we will
be forced to consider other options, but we hope that is not necessary.
Best regards,
XXXXXXXX
Google Inc.
