Universal Tube & Rollform Equipment

Universal Tube & Rollform Equipment Corporation is an American manufacturer and supplier of metal machine tubes and pipes, founded in 1985. The company specializes in buying and selling tube mills, pipe mills and rollforming machines. The company is currently based in Perrysburg, Ohio.

Domain name issue

The company became known to much wider audiences because its original domain name "uTube.com" appeared to be very similar to "YouTube.com". [cite news |title=YouTube sued by sound-alike site |work=BBC News |date=2006-11-02 |url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/6108502.stm ] The company had purchased the domain name in 1996. In August 2006, the company's website received 68 million "hits" on its website which led to its computer servers crashing. Many of the users intended to go to the video archive website YouTube, but typed the homophonic "utube.com" into their browser instead. On October 30, 2006, the company took legal action against YouTube over the website confusion. The case is still pending.cite news |title= Policeman's YouTube email goes to utube |url= http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2006/11/06/1162661591260.html |publisher=The Sydney Morning Herald |first=Stephen |last= Hutcheon |date=2006-11-06 |accessdate=2006-12-06 ] cite news |title=UTube Vs. YouTube: It Gets Ugly |url=http://www.forbes.com/markets/currencies/2006/11/02/youtube-utube-google-legal-cx_po_1102markets06.html |work=Forbes |first=Parmy |last=Olson |date=2006-11-02 |accessdate=2006-12-06 ] cite news |title= YouTube faces lawsuit from holder of similar domain |url= http://computerworld.co.nz/news.nsf/news/BDEBCE4D3593C362CC25722200092C2B |publisher=Computerworld New Zealand |first=Nancy Gohring |last=Dublin |date=2006-11-06 |accessdate= 2006-12-06 ] [cite web |url=http://www.utube.com/news/utube-v-youtube-info.asp |work=Universal Tube & Rollform Equipment Corporation |title=Utube v. YouTube Information Page ] The company has since moved their website to utubeonline.com.

References

External links

* [http://utubeonline.com/ Universal Tube & Rollform Equipment Official Web-site]
* [http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/1102062utube1.html Court lawsuit documents at "The Smoking Gun" website page]
* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oozSd5oH6tY YouTube user discussing the case on the "YouTube" website] [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1FfRzfIGXfo Followup]