whitehouse.com

I Find Karma (adam@cs.caltech.edu)
Fri, 6 Feb 1998 01:38:09 -0800


So I finally got around to checking out

http://www.whitehouse.com/

and I'll be a monkey's uncle if it didn't seem like the kind of tasteful
Web presence our very own Tim Byars would set up. Talk about painting
the white house black...

What a beautiful idea, using the first lady as a marketing device.
Who says we don't live in the best of times?

[from educom:]
> WHITE HOUSE UNHAPPY WITH PORNOGRAPHIC WEB SITE
> Presidential attorney Charles F.C. Ruff has expressed the White House
> displeasure at a pornographic Web site named whitehouse but with a
> ".com" domain name. In a letter to the site's Webmaster, Ruff wrote:
> "However distasteful your business may be, we do not challenge your
> right to pursue it or to exercise your First Amendment rights, but we
> do challenge your right to use the White House, the president, and the
> first lady as a marketing device... As your own online disclaimer
> implicitly acknowledges, the foreseeable result of your use of the
> White House domain name is that children will access your Web site
> inadvertently. Your customers will understand such a result is
> unconscionable, and so, we submit, should you." The owner of the
> site, who says "I personally like President Clinton and am happy with
> the way he is running the country," points out that there are several
> U.S. trademarks for the words "whitehouse" or "white house," none of
> which are owned by the U.S. government. (News.Com 4 Feb 98)

----
adam@cs.caltech.edu

Why must I feel like that? Why must I chase the cat?
-- George Clinton, "Atomic Dog"