halloumi.eu or halloumi.com?
A friend of mine has an interesting story to tell regarding our indigenous cheese. In the days of heady dot com frivolity, my friend - to whom I'll refer as the Big Cheese - decided to register the Domain Name halloumi.com.
Having done so, he set up a few e-mail forwards and at least a handful of people had a little laugh along the way. There was even a strange little website that briefly appeared. After a while, however, everyone went back to the daily grind.
A good 8 months later, Big Cheese got a phone call at work:
"Hello, could I speak to Mr. ...?"
"Speaking", Big Cheese replied.
"Yes, well, I'm calling from the Ministry of Commerce, and I've been asked to inform you that you should transfer this title over to us"
Needless to say, the conversation went South - so to speak - from that moment onwards. Big Cheese suggested he could put together a really nice site to promote our cholesterol-rich product, while the unimaginative and seemingly harassed pen-pusher insisted on ownership transfer as if the subject of the matter were nothing more than a second hand car.
Now I read that the Republic of Stravaraland will be trying to get this cheese of the Ancient Gods registered in the EU as a PDO (Protected Designation of Origin).
If I'm not mistaken they could find themselves in a legal quandary if Big Cheese were to challenge this, seeing as the Domain Name was registered waaaay before Stravaraland decided to claim, protect and serve Halloumi as its European, God-given right.
This has nothing to do with an item this blog ran a few weeks ago about halloumi.com being sold to the Danish Dairy Board. That was merely a rumour and nothing less than a blatant lie. But it does get some people out there thinking, doesn't it?
Long Live Halloumi - the cheese your arteries will adore.
posted by Noullis at 13:21
3 Comments:
Sorry, but as a stravaraland citizen, I must protest. Registering halloumi as a PDO, has nothing to do with your Big Cheese kouroupettos friend and his domain.
Other the cheese, other the domain (άλλο το τυρί, άλλο το domain).
A lot of domains are misleading as to their name and the honey did not fall in the sugar (δεν έππεσε το μέλι μες τη ζάχαρη). For example, parthenon.com does not refer to the Parthenon monument but to an obscure company. No harm done.
But, following your friend's line of thought, I might as well register the domain skata.com and then claim compensation from the Sewage Authority.
You have a point there but when it comes to registered trademarks, PDOs and sepcific apellations, however disputes do appear. For instance with the .eu DNs one could not register drakouna.eu if drakouna were a legal entity/person of one sort or another.
Domain 'squatting' used to be quite a problem - hence the .eu regulations.
Of course the ethos behind the demand for halloumi, I suspect had to do with a general case of bad attitude on behalf of the beuraucrat in question.
Also, I wish to inform everyone that I've given up drinking as a result of seeing some of my own inappropriate comments while recovering from a hangover.
Why doesn’t Big Cheese ask for money? I’m sure they can not legally force him to give them the domain, because there are people out there whose jobs are to register domains before the person in question actually realizes that they should own the specific site. Ask Kalomoira, she knows better.
Post a Comment
<< Home