Changing Site Name?

Jason Lester, the founder of the site, received a letter from Ford requesting him to take off the site within a week or he will face further legal action. After couple of calls here and there within Ford he got a four months extension. Eventually the site is now renamed to thediesalstop.com, which has over 26 thousands member and generates more than 200 thousands hits every day.

Lester established the site after he purchased his new truck, a 1997 Ford F250 SuperCab 4×4 with a diesel engine. He tried to look around but he was not able to find any site with information on the vehicle, so he decided to setup the site so people from everywhere can group together and pass on information on all diesel-powered Ford trucks.

About a year ago the site started running advertising, and that might have triggered the issue. Lester believes that Ford is looking at them as a commercial that has making money using their brand name, rather than just an enthusiast site. But on the other hand he believes with what he’s doing he’s actually generating more sales for Ford as well. He was upset in the beginning but now he’s too tired to argue with Ford over the issue.

Ford refused to comment on the incident.

According to Mike Levine, the founder and editor of pickuptruck.com, he believes that Ford might have come up with a marketing scheme using that domain name. Otherwise there is no reason for them to go through the hassle unless it it is for marketing needs.

He said that most automakers actually understand very well about the effectiveness of car-enthusiasts sites. It is actually very common for engineers or personnel to read these sites to get ideas and feedback for their designs.

Source:

Autonews