TRS-gate: Ford's side of the story

Filed under: Ford

In any battle of David versus Goliath, we instinctively side with the little guy, but that doesn't mean the giant isn't swinging his club for a reason. Yesterday we reported on the plight of TheRangerStation.com, an enthusiast site devoted to the Ford Ranger. TRS had posted on its own forum that the site that Ford's lawyers were asking for $5,000 and rights to the website's domain name as a result of violating the automaker's trademarks. We mentioned in our post that TRS was probably being targeted because it was selling merchandise bearing a number of Ford's trademarked logos (including one decal of a nekkid lady straddling the iconic Blue Oval, which can be seen after the jump). As the dust has settled, it appears this was the case.

Ford's official response to the matter is after the jump, but is summed up best by the line, "In short, we are not asking for $5,000 and we would like you to keep the domain name. We simply encourage TheRangerStation.com to contact Ford to request a license to continue using the domain name."

TRS has since taken down the counterfeit merchandise, i.e. merchandise not officially licensed by Ford. Other Ford enthusiast sites worried about when lawyers might come calling should A) not sell stuff bearing unlicensed Ford logos or B) follows Ford's directions after the jump on how to obtain a license.

In the realm of social media, Ford has also gotten kudos from this website for the way in which it handled the situation with TRS. Ford's head of social media Scott Monty monitored the situation all day, posted updates on Twitter and went back and forth between Ford's legal department and posting on the TRS forums.

[Source: Searchviews.com]

Continue reading TRS-gate: Ford's side of the story

TRS-gate: Ford's side of the story originally appeared on Autoblog on Thu, 11 Dec 2008 11:34:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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