Web of Triust is not an epinions trademark!

Tim Berners-Lee (timbl@w3.org)
Tue, 16 Nov 1999 16:25:23 -0500


This is not about jobs, but is sent to the only real email address I found
on your site. Please pass this on to your management.

Your assertion that "Web of Trust" is a trademark I find quite offensive. I
have used the term for a long time to identify a concept and I am myself
embarrassed that I don't always find a way to give credit to the PGP
community who used it, long before that, to identify a concept they were
promoting. Please desist from claiming trademark of something which is
clearly generic and if owned, would not be owned by epinions.

I would point out that the assertion of trademarks on generic terms, like
the assertion of the patentable novelty the processes which are not
generally considered novel, is looked on with justified disdain by the
development community.

Tim Berners-Lee