Gerry Kaimo Responds To Article

Written on Wednesday, September 3rd, 2008 at 6:26 pm | by Letters To Editor

The following is an email received from Gerry Kaimo, in response to Jon’s article, “Senator Loren Legarda and the Lessons from PLDT vs. PLDT.com” which contains a reference to an article written by Carmela Fonbuena for ABS-CBNnews.com and NEWSBREAK. Gerry Kaimo was the individual who had control of PLDT.com when the company PLDT decided to lodge a complaint against him, in which he successfully defended against the complaint.

Here is the email in full:

The article written by a certain Carmela Fonbuena has more leaks than a Maynilad water line. She is obviously not familiar with either the Internet nor it’s laws.

For example:
There was no cybersquatting because

1) the domain name pldt.com was out there for 4 months and that was after two other registrants, neither of whom was Philippine long distance telecommunications, acquired it then let it lapse. I didn’t acquire it ahead of Philippine long distance telecommunications, it was just out there, and it had been out there for some time.

2) no attempt was ever made to sell the domain name to Philippine long distance telecommunications

it was not ’shut down and transferred back to pldt after a lengthy legal battle’.

it could not have been transferred BACK to Philippine long distance telecommunications since the telephone company NEVER owned it in the first place and did not even have a legal trademark or trade name at the time of the suit. the latter fact was established when, in the process of trying to submit as evidence various advertisements and references making use of the initials ‘pldt’, the company had to admit that it had never actually registered the initials as a trademark or trade name. the ‘evidence’ was thus inadmissible.

the way i see it, for the remaining five (six?) years of the court case, the telephone company was reduced to having to argue that all it wanted to do was shut down the site, after having admitted, in effect, that it had no actual legal right or claim to have it shut down. so the lengthy legal battle was not a triumph of your lawyers holding off the barbarians at the gate, so to speak, but a triumph of their lawyers in keeping up a fight that they had no business picking in the first place.

Jon, in all these years, from the time I put up my pldt.com site till today, NO ONE has ever used the term cybersquatting to describe my actions regarding pldt.com. An apology is expected if this writer has any knowledge about writing. I have been accused of being something I am not. Either I get an explanation from her or she talks to the same lawyers who beat PLDT’s lawyers to a pulp for 6 years.

Come on, let’s be fair. She cannot dare call herself a journalism till she realizes that the first rule is verifying the facts. I hope to hear from her before she hears from me, and in the same manner by which she maligned my name. I would appreciate it if you could help me locate that “writer”.

I will cc this letter to some REAL writers. Ms. Fonbuena hopefully gets to me before I get to them.

With regards,
Gerry Kaimo

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About The Author: Letters To Editor are the articles and emails that have been sent to Filipino Voices.

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16 Responses to “Gerry Kaimo Responds To Article”

  1. the jester-in-exile on September 3rd, 2008 6:32 pm

    oooh. that’s interesting.

    (i won’t say anything anymore about fonbuena’s major booboo — for now — because apparently i’m not allowed to criticize journalists heh heh)

  2. the jester-in-exile on September 3rd, 2008 6:36 pm

    but questions instead:

    will abs-cbn, newsbreak, and fonbuena apologize to gerry?

    will there be an erratum issued? will the article be corrected, and a subsequent article issued to clarify?

    or, conversely, will there be some form of “we din’t do nuttin’ wrong, we did get our facts straight” post or story?

    news at eleven. :D

  3. Jon Limjap on September 3rd, 2008 6:39 pm

    When I wrote “cybersquatting” in my entry, I did not intend to agree with Fontabuena nor imply that Gerry Kaimo was one.

    Cybersquatting is only cybersquatting when a site is occupied to extort money from the interested parties. Gerry Kaimo clearly did not extort money from PLDT, thus he should NOT be termed as a cybersquatter.

    On the other hand, JS Lim is clearly cybersquatting.

    I shall post a clarificatory post (copy furnished to Mr. Kaimo) later tonight.

  4. Jon Limjap on September 3rd, 2008 6:40 pm

    jester my friend,

    Pre-empt me not. ;) :P

  5. Nick on September 3rd, 2008 6:43 pm

    No, Gerry clearly is not gearing this towards you Jon..

  6. Jon Limjap on September 3rd, 2008 6:48 pm

    Nick,

    I know, but I believe he deserves clarification. As such I think Mr. Kaimo wouldn’t have seen Fonbuena’s (oops! not Fontabuena as I wrote above) reference to him as a cybersquatter.

  7. Senator Loren Legarda and the lessons from PLDT vs. PLDT.com | Filipino Voices on September 3rd, 2008 7:05 pm

    […] Gerry Kaimo sent a letter to FilipinoVoices expressing disagreement with Carmela Fonbuena’s article on ABS-CBN News.Com/Newsbreak, which […]

  8. Jon Limjap on September 3rd, 2008 7:08 pm

    I posted an update on the original article, linking to this post and clarifying my use of the word cybersquatting in my article.

  9. the jester-in-exile on September 3rd, 2008 7:12 pm

    oooh. sorry jon. i think you may have misunderstood my earlier comment. i wasn’t referring to your post when i said “will there be an erratum issued” — see, your post links to the abs-cbn one, and therefore the erroneous and misleading information is abs-cbn’s, not yours.

    heck, you fell into the trap and were yourself misled. ;)

  10. benign0 on September 3rd, 2008 7:35 pm

    Gerry Kaimo is one of, if not the first of a breed of Pinoy cyber-activist that inspired me.

    It’s good to hear that he still has that fire.

    Jon, I think everyone knows you were merely making reference to Fonbuena’s article in a neutral mannner.

  11. the jester-in-exile on September 3rd, 2008 9:51 pm

    here i am hoping gerry kaimo will take the time to chronicle how he found out, how he felt upon reading jon’s article, how he felt if he had read fonbuena’s article, how he felt while writing his email, how he feels about jon’s article now, and how he feels about fonbuena’s article now.

    shouldn’t take ten minutes to send another email.

    (major hint hint heh heh heh)

  12. the jester-in-exile on September 3rd, 2008 11:34 pm

    fine. forget the hinting. gerry, how about a follow up for us who are waiting on you? we’d sure like it straight from the source. :D

  13. marck on September 4th, 2008 7:26 am

    Typographical error: “She cannot dare call herself a journalism till she realizes that the first rule is verifying the facts.”

    “Journalism” must be “journalist.”

  14. Riddle Me This: Questions The Jester-in-Exile Wants Professional Journalists to Answer | Filipino Voices on September 4th, 2008 9:23 am

    […] from an FV post, written on behalf of Gerry Kaimo: Come on, let’s be fair. She cannot dare call herself a […]

  15. Alecks on September 4th, 2008 7:21 pm

    I sympathize with Gerry. Carmela could have found the story I wrote back in 1999 useful for background. :-)

  16. The Jester-in-Exile on September 5th, 2008 6:37 pm

    so what now, alecks? what do you think is going on in response to this?

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