Google and BMW Tussle Over Domain Name Alphabet.com
Reports suggest that Google’s new parent company, Alphabet might have encountered an issue with German automaker BMW. Apparently, BMW also owns the same name and the domain as Alphabet.com and does not plan to sell it to Google anytime soon.
Image Source: New York Times
Yesterday Google had announced its administrative restructuring by launching Alphabet as a parent company above all other companies owned by Google. This move is said to have been designed, so as to, separate the core products from the far reaching projects such as Fiber, Calico etc. Alphabet was launched along with its domain name as abc.xyz.
Reports also suggest that BMW is looking into whether Google’s Alphabet has infringed on its trademark or not. However, no legal action has been announced just yet.
Alphabet.com has been down due to increased traffic while it has been noted that BMW isn’t the only company with Alphabet as its trademark. Reuters has reported over a hundred companies in the Unites States with the same trademark.
While it has been suggested that it is necessary for companies to own the .com domain, it is not important for finding a company’s online presence. Larry Page has stated earlier, that Alphabet won’t be introducing products under its own name and that it wouldn’t be a public facing name like Google. So this might not be a huge problem for the new Alphabet, after all.
