Texas tells lotto watchdog to to surrender Web sites to state

[companyone]

Hi,

12:00 AM CST on Tuesday, February 2, 2010

By CHRISTY HOPPE / The Dallas Morning News
choppe @ dallasnews .com

AUSTIN – What's in a domain?

The Texas Lottery Commission believes its good name and rightful ownership. And it had a law firm send terse letters, dated Jan. 22, to lotto watchdog Dawn Nettles and several others telling them to voluntarily turn over their Web site names to the state lottery agency.

Nettles, true to form, is telling them to scratch off.

She has run the Lotto Report, an online newsletter, for more than a decade. And she has challenged the Lottery Commission on its practices, sometimes embarrassing the agency about inflated jackpot estimates and other missteps.

Nettles operates several other Web sites about the lottery – some that list lottery-drawing results, some showing consumers the games with the worst odds and one about how much the state wins off its Megaplier option.

Eight years ago, the state argued that two Web site domain names she still owns – lottotexas .com and lottotexas .net – should be turned over to the commission.

The request was met with a well-researched letter from a lawyer informing Lottery Commission lawyers that disclaimers on Nettles' site, the generic words and the educational and noncommercial content left the state on the same legal footing as a lotto player with no matches.

"One cannot get enforceable protection for the term 'Texas Lottery' more than 'Aspirin' or 'Elevator,' " the response read.

Nettles said the Lotto Texas sites she operates began in 1996, long before the Lottery Commission began its own sites. She said commission officials are being "domain bullies" and trying to wrest from honest people what they rightfully own and operate.

"I'm a thorn in their side and have been for many years. They want those Web site names," she said.

"Lottotexas.com is nothing but drawing results," Nettles said. "You'd think they'd be happy. But the lottery doesn't operate that way."

Lottery spokesman Bobby Heith said the agency was just protecting trademarks it has owned since 1992.

"It's really to prevent confusion by the consumers," he said.

The intellectual property law firm that sent the letters – Meyertons, Hood, Kivlin, Kowert, and Goetzel – specializes in trademarks. The Lottery Commission has paid the firm $65,000 since 2008.

Heith said he was unaware of a lawsuit that Nettles said was settled eight years ago with the domain owners keeping their Web sites.

He said the agency is just trying to be king of its domain.

"We're protecting trademarks," he said. "If we don't exercise rights, we could lose them."
SOURCE & LINKS

[radioz]

It will be interesting to see where this goes. Personally, this looks like a legitimate site to me. It does present winning numbers but it also critiques the system and doesn't seem to try to imply it is the official site and has a disclaimer. Texas taxpayers should mostly be unhappy with that $65M that the lottery commission spent with the lawyers! I'm willing to bet that the owner would toss in the towel for a lot less than $65M!