Mikerowesoft domain dispute resolved

January 24th, 2004
By Norman Gidney

The Canadian teenager whose mikerowesoft.com website ran afoul of the legal beagles at Microsoft Corp. reached an out-of-court agreement with the giant software company Friday.

In return for picking a new name for his Internet operation, 17-year-old Mike Rowe of Victoria will receive a bunch of goodies from Microsoft, including help in getting Microsoft certification training, an Xbox game console and money to cover expenses in changing his website.

"It was a name we had some initial concerns about and we may have stepped over the line in terms of taking an impersonal approach," said Microsoft spokesman Jim Desler.

"But once we understood the circumstances around it, we were able to resolve this in a way that makes every party happy."

Rowe, whose site promotes his work as a web designer, has also been invited with his parents to the Microsoft campus in Redmond, Wash., where he'll have a chance to select a "handful" of Xbox game titles.

The teen's father, reached at the family's home in Victoria, said his son "was happy with the settlement and happy with the way he was treated once he spoke to them."

Kim Rowe said his son was busy Friday studying for an exam, and "he's also working on a website like crazy."

In a posting on his site earlier this month, the teen said he had received a 25-page letter from Microsoft complaining of copyright infringement and threatening legal action.

The case quickly drew such heavy attention that

www.mikerowesoft.com temporarily went down under the load.