![A Decade After Realizing It Can't Threaten A Critic Online, UCLA Returns To Threaten A Critic Online](https://i.comentr.com/DmS9-m2Y4plHF7xpr1G5jAe0R0Y_tam.jpg)
A Decade After Realizing It Can't Threaten A Critic Online, UCLA Returns To Threaten A Critic Online
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20181104/01440240976/decade-after-realizing-it-cant-threaten-critic-online-ucla-returns-to-threaten-critic-online.shtml
Back in the early days of Techdirt, we used to talk about legal disputes involving so-called "sucks sites" -- i.e., web addresses that use a company or organizations' name along with a disparaging adjective, in order to setup a website criticizing the company. In the early 2000s there were a bunch of legal disputes in which overly aggressive lawyers would threaten and/or sue the operators of such sites, claiming they were trademark infringement. Spoiler alert: they were not trademark infringement. There was never any confusion over whether or not the sites were actually endorsed by the trademark-holder (because the sites were criticizing the trademark holder.) Nor, in most cases, was there any commercial activity, which is necessary for a trademark violation.
For the most part, lawyers have finally learned that going after sucks sites is a bad idea and we don't hear of as many cases these days. But they do sometimes pop up. The latest is particularly stupid, involving the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). The details are laid out for you nicely by Adam Steinbaugh of FIRE (the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education), an organization focused on protecting free speech on campus.