General reminder:
The domain name putty.org is *NOT* run by the #PuTTY developers. It is run by somebody not associated with us, who uses the domain to interpose advertising for their unrelated commercial products. We do not endorse those products in any way, and we have never given any kind of agreement for PuTTY's name to be used in promoting them.
Please do not perpetuate the claim that putty.org is the PuTTY website. If anyone is linking to it on that basis, please change the link. The PuTTY website is chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtath… and it always has been.
You can check this by downloading the source code, which cites that URL in many places (the README, the documentation, some strings in the actual code), or by using the "Visit Web Site" menu options in the official Windows binaries (the ones signed with my personal Authenticode certificate). The true PuTTY website is the one that PuTTY itself says it is.
Many search engines list putty.org above chiark. I don't know if this is due to active SEO on the part of the domain owner, or a heuristic in the rankings. Either way, don't believe them. It's not our site.
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ArneBab
in reply to Simon Tatham • • •Sobex
in reply to ArneBab • • •At this point, it would be absolutely the right thing to get the domain back, one way or another.
(Probably register the trademark first if that isn't too expensive, then ask nicely, and then get out the lawyers)
Simon Tatham
in reply to Sobex • • •@ArneBab@rollenspiel.social I'd like nothing better, but I think I'd have to _start_ with a lawyer, just to get any idea at all of where to begin. I did try contacting one once, but they never replied to my query.
For example, I have no idea whether it _is_ the right strategy to start by registering the trademark, or how to do that, or even which country to do it in. (I'm guessing the USA, because it's .org and not .org.[country] – but _I'm_ not in the USA, so can I register a trademark there at all?)
Eugen Rochko
in reply to Simon Tatham • • •Zalasur 🐸🇺🇦
in reply to Eugen Rochko • • •@Gargron @Sobex One potential obstacle I can see right away is that "putty" is something of a generic term which might make it untrademarkable. Also, "Silly Putty" is a registered trademark (owned by Crayola) and you very well might run into a roadblock there.
You might have to modify the name of the project to something that a Trademark office might consider unique enough to trademark.
But yeah as Gargron as noted, there are services available to help with this process.