Microsoft surely picked a loser in the public relations stakes when it took on, and won its case against, Dutch 46-year-old mother of three Carola Eppink. Eppink wanted to restrict her children’s use of the internet by using a self-made program she dubbed MSNLock.
“Microsoft sued her company Unicaresoft to prevent the letters MSN being used in the name of the product.” Microsoft took action to defend their trademark while Eppinkâs lawyer says the use of MSNLock was within the law. Whatever the outcome, one cannot view this as a PR victory for Microsoft. Unicaresoft is also required to pay Microsoft’s legal fees of â¬18,000.
Commenting on the ruling, Eppink said, “Of course we are saddened by the fact that the judge has given the domain name MSNLOCK to Microsoft and that he doesn’t allow this reference to trademark. When everybody is eating tomatoes, we cannot talk about pickles. When 90% are using MSN, we can’t think up an appropriate alternative name.”
What is even more galling for Eppink is that there are other domain names using “MSN” that contain explicit pornographic content.
Unicaresoft will continue its mission to protect children and young people from the harmful effects of excessive MSN and Internet use with software that offers security for such vulnerable groups, as well as to help those with chat “addiction” problems.