Amazon.com, Owners of Woot.com in Legal Battle with Adult Company AdultWoot.com
Stating Trademark and Copyright Infringement
Los Angeles, CA/February 8, 2013 – Small, family-owned online adult DVD store www.AdultWoot.com, which offers the latest adult movies all for under $5 is being bullied and threatened by online powerhouse giant Amazon.com (NASDAQ: AMZN) claiming trademark infringement.
“Woot” (Want One Of Those) is a widely used term and acronym used by online sites as well as incorporated into everyday conversations.
Amazon.com retained lawyers from Texas to secretly take down the AdultWoot.com site in essence overnight, by serving its hosting provider only. No one within The Richard Group had sought out the owner of the site.
AdultWoot.com is a Mom and Pop start up to provide affordable adult content to those who have been dramatically affected by the recession, conceptualized as a way for Ms. May to continue to provide for her children while struggling with the economy. “I fear that without my online business and loyal customers, income will be taken away from me and my children. Adult businesses are real people too, people like you and I who need to provide for our families.”
Ms. May has contacted the team of lawyers representing Amazon.com directly, as she cannot afford to go to battle with the mega-corporation. Shockingly, she has yet to receive a response. She’d like the consumer public to understand that the two sites are completely different and do not share similar products. An online search for “cheap adult DVDs” is redirected to “Cheap Adult DVDs, Daily XXX Deals and Porn DVD” which all re-link directly to the AdultWoot.com site, giving connoisseurs of adult product the exact title they’re looking for.
An online search of “woot” does not pull up AdultWoot.com and Ms. May wonders why, with the plethora other companies who operate with the word ‘woot’ in their name, how Amazon isn’t trying to vigorously shut them down as well, especially when domain names of acronyms, whole categories of products, services and common expressions are ineligible for trademark protection.