Reprinted from Daily Press, Tuesday, April 20, 1999:
By Peter Dujardin
Daily Press
WILLIAMSBURG, Virginia — Gilinda Rogers, the Willi-amsburg woman who has amassed hundreds of Web addresses, has come to terms with Cox Communications over two sites she owned -- www.coxcable.com and www.coxcommunications.com.
For $440 -- the amount that Rogers paid to buy and develop the sites in the past few years -- Rogers gave up her rights to the Cox names, according to Rogers and Cox officials.
In March, Leslie Spasser, a Cox lawyer based in Atlanta, came to Rogers' Williamsburg home and handed her the paperwork. Last week, Rogers signed the final paper, had it notarized and ended the 2-year-old dispute.
"It was the right thing to do," Rogers said Monday. "Now it won't keep me up at night."
As to why she settled for so little, Rogers said she was never holding out for money. She simply wanted to do business with the cable company, something it became clear they weren't interested in.
"My intention was never to hurt them, but to help them," she said.
Cox is happier now, too.
"It was my hope that we could resolve the dispute over these domain names in an amicable manner and avoid the expense and inconvenience of litigation," Cox lawyer Leslie Spasser wrote to Rogers.
"Your agreement to transfer the names to Cox in return for Cox's reimbursement of your registration costs was quite reasonable and allowed the matter to be resolved relatively expeditiously and in a manner that benefited the interests of both you and Cox."
In return for giving up the names, Cox agreed not to sue Rogers for any damages she caused by holding the names the past two years. Rogers also agreed to hand over some 10,000 complaint forms Cox customers filled out on her sites.
Rogers owns some 600 domain names, including 300 or so "best of" names -- for example, "bestofNYC.com" that she's now developing into full-fledged Web sites. She sold her "eve.com" name -- a name she bought for her daughter Eve -- to Calla Beauty, a California beauty supply company that plans to do business on the Internet as eve.com. In return, she got college money for Eve and an agreement that her daughter could keep using the eve@eve.com e-mail address.
The dispute with Cox goes back to early 1997, when Rogers heard Cox was coming to Hampton Roads.
She said she bought the domain names because she thought she'd be able to give them up in return for Cox keeping her Williamsburg TV show "First News" in its lineup. She also thought Cox might end up advertising on the sites or using her Web development services.
Instead, Cox dropped her show. A few months later, Rogers began posting "complaint forms" on her Cox sites. The forms described the conversations people would have with Cox officials -- offering options such as "cursed at me," "hung up on me" and "didn't have a clue." Some 10,000 people posted responses on the sites.
In early 1998, Cox began sending Rogers letters. Although she may have gotten the domain names first, the company said, it had the legal right to them because they are trademarked. Cox said she was confusing customers and hurting its image.
Rogers resisted, even after the company sent five lawyers to try to change her mind, telling her the case might wind up in court.
She said they offered her $40,000 for the names, but she thought it might be a setup -- that accepting the money would allow Cox to sue her for trying to hold Cox hostage.
Several months ago, Rogers did away with the complaint forms and agreed to pass visitors to her sites through to Cox's official site, www.cox.com.
Still, Cox still wanted the names, and the recent agreement gives the firm possession.
Peter Dujardin can be reached at 247-4749 or by e-mail at pdujardin@dailypress.com
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