Sometimes organisations just seem to do the opposite of what you’d expect. Countless stories of this abound, from public litigations with customers to cracking down on valuable employees for taking then cheap pens home. Today seems to be such a day for Abode, who are threatening action against the owner of FreshAirApps. The reason? Wait for it … the use of the word “air” in the domain name. Here is what Adobe told him:
“Adobe® AIR™†is a trademark of Adobe that may not be used by others except under a written license from Adobe. You may not incorporate the Adobe AIR trademark, or any other Adobe trademark, in whole or in part, in the title of your Developer Application or in your company name, domain name or the name of a service related to Adobe AIR.
Now this is a website that is showcasing a technology Adobe have put on the market to try and challenge Microsoft’s dominance and take a slice of the developer market. In my mind, the more community support you can get, the better, and here they are going after someone who is endeavoring to push their aims forward. I was a target of a similar target infringement threat sometime back, for daring to put online a “Magic-8 Ball” web game, so I know what it’s like to be on the receiving end of something like this. Luckily, the site will not get buried, but is being rebranded as Refreshing Apps. Good luck mate, we’re all behind you!
Seems consistent with Adobe’s style. They are the owner of the poor usability flash. They have a portable document reader that is huge and full of useless junk to take up space on your computer. They don’t seem to offer much of value.