Starring
Here in Poland, we have a bit of fun with Mercedes (Daimler-Chrysler corporation) and Szulc-Efekt, small polish company, who owns (whether it owns it shows up in a moment) mercedes.com.pl.
Prologue
But go back, to beginning. Somewhere in dot-com age Szulc-Efekt company have registered domain mercedes.com.pl. How it was possible? In Poland at this time was no clear regulations about trademarks, brands and domain names. So NASK, polish domain name registrar allowed anyone register any domain.
But in 2001 things become much more clear here in Poland, so Szulc-Efekt decided to give away (not sell) domain, and donated it to polish Daimler-Crysler branch. Did it on form which was required at this time by NASK, so D-C had only sign and send it to NASK to gain full control over mercedes.com.pl. Szulc-Efekt have confirmed delivery of this form, and few days later also send it via fax. D-C still remained silent.
Tension rises
But somewhere around year 2003 Szulc-Efekt have received first letters from D-C Europe HQ in Stuttgart (of course in german). They were requesting Szulc-Efekt to donate domain to D-C. But Adam Szulc (Szulc-Efekt CEO) didn’t want to do it again, since it has it done already, and he is not responsible for keeping order in D-C documentation. D-C started to threaten Szulc-Efekt, so finally Adam Szulc decided to sue D-C to stop this whole thing (it takes over 5 years) and want to get refund his cost, and force D-C to apologize.
Lesson for You?
Don’t matter who You are don’t make Yourself to public laugh due Your incompetency because with every second PR disaster becomes bigger and bigger… D-C could close whole thing without any notice by public, and now milk have split. Polish mainstream media are writing about D-C incompetency. Nice work with company image building :-))
Some links (all in polish):
- mercedes.com.pl and it’s copy in case D-C finally got control over it http://web.archive.org/web/20050307035542/http://mercedes.com.pl/ page optimized for IE
- http://www.efekt.pl/ Szulc-Efekt homepage
Polish media about it:
Gazeta Wyborcza