Utube to sue YouTube amid site confusion ...

[JackR]

Utube to sue YouTube amid site confusion

Matt Weaver
Thursday November 2, 2006
Guardian Unlimited


A company selling used tube machinery is to sue YouTube after its website - called utube.com - crashed repeatedly under the weight of millions of mistaken clicks.
The US firm Universal Tube and Rollform Equipment Corporation, which supplies second-hand tube and pipe machinery, employs 17 people at its base in Perrysburg, Ohio.

Its website has become one of most clicked manufacturing sites in the world and recorded 68m hits in August as computer users mistook it for the video sharing website.

The site became so overwhelmed by unwanted visitors that it was shut down for several days last month following the news that Google had purchased YouTube for more than £1bn.

Universal Tube says it has lost business because genuine customers have had trouble accessing its site, and has filed a lawsuit asking YouTube to change its web address or pay the cost of creating a new domain name.

"We've had to move our site five times in an effort to stay head of the YouTube visitors," Ralph Girkins, the Universal Tube president, said. "We there first by 10 years."

Universal Tube issued an apology to would-be buyers of reconditioned tube and pipe mills, saying: "Because of the similarities between the two domains, millions of people have been confused.

"This massive traffic flow to our site, which is actually getting worse, has shut down our website again and again."

The company said its site had repeatedly been moved to providers with large servers to handle "not only our customers and reps but also the continuing deluge of confused video searchers".

It thanked customers for their "continued patience and patronage as we work to resolve this unfortunate situation".

[mad4]

[T0PS3O]

Originally Posted by JackR

... filed a lawsuit asking YouTube to change its web address or pay the cost of creating a new domain name.

LOL, they're having a laugh.

Choose:

1. Rebrand the world biggest online video brand at the expense of millions.
2. Pay $10 for a new domain and $25 for a freelancer to copy the site over.



Just because visitors are too thick to search for the right name doesn't warrant a lawsuit IMO. This is just plain stupid.

68M hits, let's guess 20M visits. They could have makde 20,000 X (N)CPM At just $1 CPM they could have bought some kick ass servers.

[JackR]

My favorite part of the story is the articulate quote from Mr Girkins:

Ralph Girkins, the Universal Tube president, said.

"We there first by 10 years."

[mad4]

Suing Youtube(Google) is probably the single biggest piece of link bait you can do.

utube.com is about to get even more traffic than they already have.

[tiboh]

Originally Posted by T0PS3O

LOL, they're having a laugh.

Choose:

1. Rebrand the world biggest online video brand at the expense of millions.
2. Pay $10 for a new domain and $25 for a freelancer to copy the site over.

will they be choosing option 1? lols... if they didn't want more traffic then they should've stayed quiet and bought a new domain name or... like the poster above me said, they should've just put up some ads or sold some adspace or something... atleast they're getting more things from people mistooking their site for something..

[Ohene]

What a bunch of morons...

Hey I'm getting TONS of FREE TRAFFIC.. I'm going to sue!

man.. I'll buy that domain utube and make a killing off aff and ppc links

[sterlingpixel]

Idiots, as has been said on here before if you can't make the most from such traffic they should sticl some pipe and tube up there ubend.

this'll get trown out of court prtty quick.

ops did I just go view all of there pages lol

[bLaZ3n]

lmao.. wow.. that sucks for utube.. but dam 46m in hits in 1 MONTH! thats amazing

[qwestcommunications]

It might be more profitable to show ads on their site than to quarrel with Google. It would be like those misspelled sites that take advantage by showing a bunch of related ads.

[Feelfox]

Originally Posted by mad4

OMG...envy

[ReadyToGo]

This news may just drive more traffic to his website.
Could he be doing this on purpose?

[Computerized]

Haha...I find suing for free traffic hilarious, even if they did indeed have to go down for a bit. Just get some better hosting.

[SamOwen]

Why not make the most out of this and monetize all that traffic?

[blademaster]

I can't believe this site has the nerve to complain that they are getting millions of dollars in free advertising from youtube customers.

[redz]

read about it on google news, that must suck a lot since nobody really wants to buy pipes or w/e utube is selling but they are visiting it, mabe they should switch to a video site as well lol.

[kingrage]

What's worse than utube.com?

http://www.zuneit.com/?p=3

[Motter]

Sue them for the great advertising opportunity that they were forced to get?

Sue them? That's like sueing them cause they gave them money.

put a blip of content about videos and a crap load of well placed ads and you have got yourself a fortune

[carl_in_florida]

Originally Posted by qwestcommunications

It might be more profitable to show ads on their site than to quarrel with Google. It would be like those misspelled sites that take advantage by showing a bunch of related ads.

It's probably more profitable to sell ads then tubes.

I'll go ahead and take that domain off their hands for $11.

[Nintendo]

Utube should change the URL of their site and turn Utube.com...in to a video site!