I.M.P.S. Bans Smurfs

International Merchandising, Promotion & Services (I.M.P.S) the company that licenses smurfs has been busy lately. They decided that the use of the words smurf, smurfs and all their translations within a WWW domain name was infringing on their copyright therefore banning the use of the words in a domain name.
This has affected many smurf related websites around the world, most of which were non-profit personal collection sites. A loop hole in the copyright laws means that non-smurf related sites have not been affected. Unfortunately one of the results of the actions taken by I.M.P.S. is that some of these popular domain names have been taken over by these non-smurf sites including directories, advertisment sites and even porn sites!
I am happy to report though that all smurf websites owners affected gritted their teeth, sweated for hours revamping their sites and names and all remain active on the WWW.

Article written December 2002