Comments on: DateBk5 Just Released

Hats off to Pimlico!!!

Stephen

I bet they also tried to hijack other addresses of their competitors.

I think I will stay away from Iambic software until their policy changes.

http://makeashorterlink.com/?N263223D

and post to their forum.

Ted Tschopp

Are DateBk4 or DateBk5 are registered trademarks? In previous court cases, cyber-squatters didn't get to keep a domain name when it was trademarked to someone else.

Should the word immoral *REALLY* be applied here?

Maybe prankster is a better use here...

IMHO it would be bad enough to use these types of methods against another for-profit company, but to target a charity does not evoke much consumer support to say the least.

lets see how long it lasts :)
gee, i've used tiny sheet loyally for a few years, but this is sad.

bastards!!!

I was considering purchasing your product tinysheets, as it supports the new Sony hi-res+ format, but now that I see you have registered your competitors names as domain names, I feel I will have to refrain from purchasing your product. I also feel that I will not be able to recommend them or your time tracking software to the company I work for during the day.

I'm sure you felt that the quality of your product demanded that you respond in such a manner.

Ted Tschopp

P.S. Also becuase you feel like censoring my orignal message, I feel it necessary to repost it.

My fears were confirmed: Evil alcohol merchants calling themselves "Plam Vineyards" have hijacked that name, obviously attempting to steer careless Palm enthusiasts into a life of drunken decrepitude.

Shameless.

To Whom It May Concern:

I have worked hard to convince network administrators in my law office to incorporate TimeReporter for TimeSlips into our computer management system. So far, we have paid more than $500 for various copies of this software.

Undoubtedly, this software will need to be upgraded in the near future. However, your actions in regards to the DateBk4 and DateBk5 domain names has convinced me to counsel everyone here against any such purchase from your company, now or at any time in the future.

Furthermore, you need to consult legal counsel as soon as possible. I am not giving you legal advice, nor would I ever represent individuals or corporations who have to resort to such measures to make a dollar. I have principles. Nevertheless, you would be wise to talk to an attorney who is well versed in computer law who has researched cyber-squating. Have the attorney look up a case concerning "joecartoons.com."

Regardless of the outcome of any potential legal action against you, know this: You can kiss one loyal customer, and everyone in this law firm, and every attorney and law firm that I ever speak to, goodbye.

Sincerely,

J. Bradley Horn, Esq.
Shoemaker & Associates

I bought Bump Attack from Iambic, but now that they have shown what they really are, I will never buy another of their products. The cybersquatting is bad enough, but censoring the posts to their board shows how slimy they really are!!

Don't forget to add comments to their listing at PalmGear!

Registrar Name....: Register.com
Registrar Whois...: whois.register.com
Registrar Homepage: http://www.register.com

Domain Name: datebk4.com

Created on..............: Thu, May 02, 2002
Expires on..............: Fri, May 02, 2003
Record last updated on..: Fri, May 03, 2002

Administrative Contact:
iambic, Inc.
Vidal Graupera
12 South First Street Ste. 300
San Jose, CA 95113
US
Phone: 1 408 367 1600
Fax..: 1 408 367 1606
Email: administrator@iambic.com

Technical Contact, Zone Contact:
Register.Com
Domain Registrar
575 8th Avenue - 11th Floor
New York, NY 10018
US
Phone: 902-749-2701
Fax..: 902-749-5429
Email: domain-registrar@register.com

Domain servers in listed order:

DNS.TIMEREPORTER.COM 209.133.27.56
PHOENIX.TIMEREPORTER.COM 209.133.34.245

it's about time :)

no, i don't believe the terms of service said that i couldn't expose iambics shady business practices. hmmm...

From: "C. E. Steuart Dewar" <dewar@P...>
Date: Tue May 7, 2002 12:26 pm
Subject: Re: [pdbk] Strange redirection

> On Tue, 7 May 2002 11:30:56 -0400, William Smith wrote:
>
> >All's fair in love and marketing I guess.
>
> No it is not... and I'll never buy anything from a company that I know
> practices these kinds of things. If they have to resort to this to sell
their
> product, then even they must not believe in the quality of their software.

I concur with the latter statement. It may be legal, but it smacks of a company run by people who will trade all their integrity to make a few extra dollars, and I just won't stoop that low under any conditions.

I guess there's someone there who is patting themselves on the back at how clever they are.

Personally I don't find it clever - I find it distasteful and surely a reflection on the ethics of the people who run that company.

Yes, I suppose I could have rushed out and registered all those domains (and datebk4.org and datebk4.net and datebk4.name), but the only reason I would have done that would be to protect myself against this kind of muck. I find it so distasteful to think that way, that I just won't do it.

You can send an email to Iambic telling them what you think about it.

Cheers!
CESD, Pimlico Software, Inc.
==========================================

"Furthermore, you need to consult legal counsel as soon as possible. I am not giving you legal advice, nor would I ever represent individuals or corporations who have to resort to such measures to make a dollar. I have principles."

ALL the profits from the sale of Pimlico's shareware products go to the Dewar Wildlife Trust, Inc. a 501(c)(3) and Georgia non-profit corporation which the Dewars established to fund various wildlife conservation projects including the Dewar's own Gorilla Haven project which is building a sanctuary for Western Lowland Gorillas on 324 acres in the North Georgia Mountains -- the first phase of which is currently scheduled for completion in 2002.

From Dictionary.com:
hi·jack also high·jack (hjk) Informal
tr.v. hi·jacked, hi·jack·ing, hi·jacks
1. To stop and rob (a vehicle in transit).
2. To steal (goods) from a vehicle in transit.
3. To seize control of (a moving vehicle) by use of force, especially in order to reach an alternate destination
[end dictionary.com]

In Internet (and Website) terms, hijacking is the act of forcefully or fraudulently redirecting traffic from a live domain that is not yours and/or taking over control of a live domain that is owned by someone else. These domains were not owned by anyone were they? So it's not hijacking.

Bad business practice? Sure, maybe, depending on your own outlook. But not hijacking. My personal opinion is that if they were important, they should have been registered by Pimlico instead of hanging out there for grabs by anyone.

And a *WINE* company trying to steal PDA traffic? Give me a break.

"In November, 1999, Congress passed and President Clinton signed the Anti-cyber Piracy Act (the “Act”). The Act is found at 15 U.S.C Section 1125. The Act establishes that a registrant of a domain name may be liable to the owner of a trademark or others that may be affected by the “bad faith” of the domain name registrant.

"As indicated, the Act provides protection not only for registered trademarks, but also to:

"any word, term, name, symbol, or device, or any combination thereof, or any false designation of origin, false or misleading description of fact which is likely to cause confusion or to cause mistake, or to deceive as to affiliation, connection or association of such person with another person, or as to the origin, sponsorship or, in commercial advertising or promotion, misrepresents the nature, characteristics, qualities of goods or
services.

"The Act further provides that the owner of the domain name

' …shall be liable in a civil action by any person who believes that he or she is or is likely to be damaged by such act.

"The Act defines bad faith to include:

"'the person’s offer to transfer, sell or otherwise assign the
domain name to the owner of the mark for financial gain without having used or (having) the intent to use the domain name in a bona fide offering of any goods or services, or the person’s prior conduct indicating a pattern of such conduct.'”

PS Ted: Nice work with datebk.com!

----

Jeff Meyer

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/actionnames

vidal is a slimeball

"Why do www.datebk4.com and www.datebk5.com lead to the Iambic site? Did Iambic buy out the DateBk product, and now legitimately own the rights to DateBk, as well as the domains? etc"

No response. Just a ban. Oh well.

---
What's Wrong With This Picture?
http://raj.phangureh.com/picture.html

Not bad.

The conversion rate to sales is *much* lower. In the case of my products, it is closer to 2% than 20%.

Don't forget also, that many of those downloads could be existing users upgrading their product.

To all Iambic customers or potential customers:

You may or may not be aware that Iambic has recently begun criminal
"cybersquatting" of their primary (and superior) competition DateBk
4 & 5 from Pimlico Software.

Vidal Graupera has registered the datebk4.com and datebk5.com
domains and is re-directing them to the Action Names web page in an
attempt to deceive users and potential purchasers of Pimlico's
products. This began only days ago in anticipation of the latest
release of DateBk5 from Pimlico.

It would be bad enough for Iambic to display this complete lack of
morals and ethics against a for-profit competitior, however Pimlico
Software is not a for-profit competitor. They are a non-profit
organization that supports wildlife conservation and is constructing
a "gorilla haven" for the protection of these animals in a natural
habitat.

I would encourage you all to write letters or email to Iambic
expressing your distaste for their actions. I would also suggest
that any potential purchasers of Iambic products consider the types
of criminal and unethical activities that your hard earned dollars
would be supporting.

If you are considering purchasing Action Names, I would strongly
suggest you instead purchase DateBk5 at
http://www.pimlicosoftware.com You will receive a better product,
fantastic customer support, and you will be supporting a wonderful
charity not a sleazy company willing to resort to criminal tactics
to try to deceive their competition's customers and prospective
customers.

As if all of this was not enough, Iambic representatives have spent
the last couple days deleting any post on the forum which mentions
this situation in an attempt to avoid public scrutiny of their
actions. This post will be quickly deleted I am sure.

Please remember that the only way to let companies know this kind of
behavior is intolerable is to vote with your dollars. Please make
that statement by taking your money elsewhere.

Best regards,

Robert C

Not affiliated with Pimlico Software, only a happy user of their products.

I couldn't find your post on slashdot.com. I wonder if they deleted it. :-O

Pimlico software is a company own and operated by just one man(C.E. Steward Dewar) he is the only programmer involved in DateBK#.

Iambic that is a corporation should have some respect! An people complain about Microsoft, Iambic bussiness practices are more abusive than Micro Soft.

Maybe a coincidence?

There doesn't appear to be any way to find the article through the website. I doubt anybody who doesn't already know the story will see this.

I wonder why it doesn't appear as an item in the news or features section.

PERZN PRYDE!!!!
_______________
L.A. Lakers Watch
Final 5/7-San Antonio 88, L.A. Lakers 85
Series tied 1-1
Next game: Friday 5/10 @ San Antonio @ 10:30 PM.

Just a note that the preferences have been totally reorganized, and are much more intuitive now than they were in DateBk4.

I have to agree I used Datebk+ for a while and liked the interface. I then tried Datebk4 for a month and the interface always felt clumsy and slow. So tonight I tried Datebk5 and things have not improved much and the program is slower. The preferences are better, but still the interface is too clumsy for me to use on a daily basis.

Hmm, can you prioritise events? Like, I want to see all A+ events in the next two weeks on a single screen. AFAIK, nobody does this, but maybe I'm not looking hard enough.

plus, you don't need a separate phone, todo, or memo enhancement application--this one does all of that. it would be worth buying a palm for this program only, IMO.

I am sorry, but I have a 16MB device. You totally don't get what I wam talking about.

Make an example to let you know it clearly.

Suppose normal PC programs takes 10MB of your hard drive, will you think a program which takes 50MB "too large"? This has nothing to do with that you have a 10GB hard drive, or 40GB hard drive or how much free space you have in your system.

Of course 600K is fine for the RAM I have in my Clie, however this is really waaaaaaaaay too large, I am just comparing it with regular Palm OS programs. How much RAM I have is a seprate issue.

Color owl icon? Datebook program has links to more icons (2kids in the garage)

Roy

I would've told you RTFM, but I'll play nice. ^_^


Jim

Only the "www.datebk4.com" and "www.datebk5.com" URLs are redirected to a blank page...

The simpler "datebk4.com" and "datebk5.com" URLs (without the leading "www"s) STILL take you to Iambic.

Lame.

Bye, bye Iambic. Don't expect a DIME from me!

-- John Goodman
Incite Design Works
www.incitedesignworks.com