Those of you who think that the Olympics is about sport should think again, read this sorry greedy little tale of how the London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games (LOCOG) tried to bully a website owner into giving up his site, simply because he had the temerity to have the number "2012" in the URL.
Matthew Parker runs a site that offers to help people find houses to rent during the 2012 Olympics in London. Unfortunately he fell fowl of LOCOG, because his URL was www.london2012rentmyhouse.com.
LOCOG claimed that because they had a trademark on "2012" Matthew should not be allowed to use it in his URL or indeed run a website that, in their view, cashed in on their revenue stream
Funny how the concept of sport has been ignored by LOCOG, isn't it?
I also wonder quite how they intend to enforce their trademark on "2012", does that mean that every time a newspaper, blog site or other media organisation uses the number "2012" they have to pay a fee?
The dispute with Matthew has lasted for five months. Matthew and LOCOG have now reached an agreement allowing the old address to be redirected to the new one.
The old web address is www.london2012rentmyhouse.com. The new one is www.londonrentmyhouse.com.
It's the money, certainly not the sport, that drives the Olympics.
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