Posted on 05/28/2009 4:25:29 PM PDT by WesternCulture
Home furnishing giant Ikea has launched legal proceedings over the rights to the domain name iloveikea.se, a site which currently specializes in selling used Ikea furniture.
The site, which is modeled after the popular Swedish buy-and-sell site blocket.se, has been operating for about a month.
Ikea has now asked the Internet Infrastructure Foundation (Stiftelsen för internetinfrastruktur), the body responsible for registering domain names ending in ‘.se’, to help resolve the dispute over iloveikea.se, claiming the site infringes on the Ikea brand.
“It’s obvious that a visitor to a homepage with the description iloveikea as the impression that it is the applicant (Ikea) which lies behind the website to which the domain name leads,” write Ikea’s representative, attorney Jonas Gulliksson.
He also asserts that the impression of there being a relationship between the discount furniture retailer and the website is strengthened by the fact that the site only exists to sell used Ikea furniture.
“It’s very important to us that customers know that they are buying from Ikea so that there isn’t any confusion,” said Ikea spokesperson Ylva Magnusson to the TT news agency.
But according to the founder of iloveikea.se, Klas-Göran Karlsson, there’s little risk of a mix-up.
“We are exceptionally clear on the site that we are not in any way associated with Ikea,” he said.
He thinks instead Ikea is trying to thwart the development of a well-functioning second hand market in its products.
“There are also a number of other sites which have Ikea in their domain name,” he said.
Ikea’s lawyer states in his submission that Ikea doesn’t have the ability to check the condition or features of used furniture sold on the site and that Ikea has a legitimate interest in ensuring that the Ikea brand isn’t watered down.
Karlsson, however, is convinced that he’ll be found to be in the right. But just in case he’s also registered the domain name billyandfriends.se.
The plain reason to why two of the 20 richest men here on Earth (according to Forbes) happen to come from Sweden (That H&M guy is the other one - yet another spin-off Swedish Socialism could pride itself of), a country housing 9.2 million inhabitants, is of course not so much the Viking spirit of our best men, but our ability to copy whatever sickening habit that stems from abroad.
Now that our former Soviet neighbor no longer exists, we Swedes must give up on the idea of trying to outdo Soviet in the game of Socialism.
Instead, we ought to imitate the most ridiculous behavior patterns displayed by American “leaders” of business;
Suing everyone around instead of trying to run a company.
Don’t be so hard on IKEA. One of the privileges of rising to the top of the heap is having your lawyers push other people around. If IKEA’s not careful, it’ll get its just desserts in the end.
This strikes me as something a smart business operator would quietly settle. The website itself is great PR for Ikea, so a simple disclaimer that they’re not run by Ikea should be fine. Siccing the lawyers on people who actually LIKE your product comes across as a Very Dumb Move.
“One of the privileges of rising to the top of the heap is having your lawyers push other people around.”
- Thank you, I feel better now:)
Maybe the best way of staying ahead of competition is to focus on the little guy one mile beyond you instead of the hungry wolves breathing down your neck?
Correction:
“the little guy one mile BEHIND you”
I’m not a fan of IKEA. Thanks to them and their influence on other furniture stores, furniture shopping now means heading to an overcrowded store, finding an acceptable piece of furniture, heading to some warehouse with a dolly to get the unassembled furniture in a cardboard flatpack, standing in a very long checkout line, securing the flatpack to the roof of your car, and then trying to put the stupid thing together. The number of furniture stores that deliver furniture in non-flatpack form seems to be diminishing every day.
Plenty of furniture stores that still deliver. So the problem is not IKEA, but probably that you expect delivery at IKEA prices.
Actually not so many around here - many seem to be adopting the IKEA model. And I don’t mind paying extra - IKEA stuff isn’t particularly cheap anyway.
There's much to so say in favor of this being a not so very intelligent move by the bigger of the two companies.
But there is actually a certain possibility that IKEA might benefit from this kind of publicity.
IMO it could give the image of IKEA being a company selling affordable, well designed products, even so hard-wearing there's a second hand market for them.
- I sympathize with your attitude, but I also guess you agree it all depends on the customer.
As a Swede, I won't exactly apologize for what IKEA has done to small, traditional, producers of simple, affordable yet robust furniture everywhere just like I expect no apology from the inhabitants of Italy or America because of what pizza and hamburgers have done to the Swedish market for “husmanskost”; traditional, hearty dishes once found in every corner of Sweden, made from cheap, although high quality ingredients, restaurant food every blue collar Volvo, SAAB and Ericsson worker could afford. You know, the meatball kinda thing..
Our meatballs will have their revenge on pizza!
I happened into an Ikea right after the election. NEVER AGAIN. EVERY SINGLE EMPLOYEE had on a pro-obama t-shirt. I didn’t notice it initially. When I realized what was going on, I quietly left my filled buggy in the middle of an aisle and left.
I stopped buying Ikea years ago, their stuff sucks.
________________________________________________
How many go a second time? Not a great percentage, I'm sure.
“I happened into an Ikea right after the election. NEVER AGAIN. EVERY SINGLE EMPLOYEE had on a pro-obama t-shirt.”
- While dealing with customers??? That would never have been allowed over here in Sweden.
Send in Sergeant Thomas Highway to clear up the mess!
I’m pretty sure this runs contrary to corporate policy. If the manager was aware of it and didn’t bother, that’s an even worse problem for IKEA.
“I stopped buying Ikea years ago, their stuff sucks.”
- IKEA products are nowhere near real furniture, we could probably agree on that.
But what’s the alternative?
Here in Sweden, there are some competitors who sell the same kind of things at the same price level. Most of it is even more boring and of lesser quality though.
If you don’t wish to spend something like $200 on a nightstand table, where do you go where you live?
The shirts were yellow with a presidential seal and wording underneath saying “Change Is Good.” The shirts also had an
Ikea logo. They were provided by Ikea. This was at the Washington DC Ikea in the Woodbridge, VA area.
- Reason enough to boycott IKEA!
I have no personal connection to IKEA, but as a Swede, I happen to care MUCH about how Swedish companies behave in the countries they do business in.
Believe me, the sheer money aspect is very secondary in this context.
I really wonder if Kamprad (the founder of IKEA) would've approve of this. He's still alive and doing well from what I've heard.
One thing I do know though is that my grandfather, who IMO was the very definition of a businessman, instantly would have fired any employee in charge of such an unbecoming political celebration if it had been performed in the name of the company he ran.
Common decency precedes business success.
The reason why I (still) boycott Absolut:
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