Roku Developer Program

[bbefilms]

I just got a letter from mm-roku.com regarding a few domains relating to my roku dev work that are parked at GoDaddy.com. Apparently Godaddy sticks advertising on parked domains. Anyone know if this is legitimate entity (mm-roku.com)? Anyone else get anything like this? There was absolutely no contact information in the email, and they aren't responding to replies. Given my experience with how unresponsive Roku has been to my NDK inquiries, maybe this is legit.
Thanks
Greg

[destruk]

Whois says it looks legit --
Admin Name: Domain Administrator
Admin Organization: Roku, Inc.
Admin Street: 12980 Saratoga Ave.,
Admin City: Saratoga
Admin State/Province: CA
Admin Postal Code: 95070
Admin Country: US
Admin Phone: +1.4088726833

Name and address match https://www.roku.com/about/contact
12980 Saratoga Ave.
Saratoga, CA 95070

You might want to call Roku and get it sorted out, or contact the moderators here to look into it with you.

[bbefilms]

Thanks, good idea (any moderators listening who'd like to PM me to help sort this out?). I didn't think a domain name like rokudeveloper.com would be a problem, but apparently that's not the case. The sad thing is that were parked at GoDaddy pending me getting my developer website up and running, which I'm still working on.

The email stated: "Should you require additional information or wish to further discuss this issue, please do not hesitate to contact us." but they're not answering emails and provide absolutely no contact information.

[BradC]

"destruk" wrote:
Whois says it looks legit --
Admin Name: Domain Administrator
Admin Organization: Roku, Inc.
Admin Street: 12980 Saratoga Ave.,
Admin City: Saratoga

you sure you didn't just look at roku.com? That's a different domain.


mm-roku.com is registered to a company that apparently makes a living by scaring people out of domain names. I'm not sure why they would need that domain name with roku in it, other than to appear more legitimate?


Domain Name: MM-ROKU.COM
Registrar: MARKMONITOR INC.
Whois Server: whois.markmonitor.com
Referral URL: http://www.markmonitor.com


http://reports.internic.net/cgi/whois?w ... ype=domain

[bbefilms]

If I put MM-ROKU.COM into a web browser it takes me to roku.com. I guess they could be using forwarding to do this? All very odd.

The MM company looks legit, would they be contracted by Roku? (though their name doesn't appear on the list of famous companies it works for) My question if this were the case would then be why is Roku using a 3rd party company to hound its own platform developers? It doesn't make any sense.

[destruk]

It looks like Roku employs their services -
https://www.markmonitor.com/services/br ... ection.php

http://www.whois.com/whois/mm-roku.com

Roku has posted here before that any domain names or competing products like RokuDeveloper.com are prohibited.
http://wwwimg.roku.com/static/imagereso ... eb2014.pdf

NO USE OF IDENTICAL OR SIMILAR NAMES; NO COMBINATION MARKS
You may not use any name or trademark confusingly similar to the Roku Logos or any other
Roku Mark. You may not use any Roku Mark in such proximity to any of your own trademarks or
third party trademarks so as to create a combination or composite mark. You may not combine
any Roku Mark with your own or other third party trademark to create a telescoped mark or
“mash-up” of the two (or more) marks.

[bbefilms]

RokuDeveloper isn't a mashup but a description, just like MercedesSalesman.com, and I don't see Mercedes banning that. In any event, the email suggests contacting them to discuss, and they're not responding.

[kc8pql]

The word Roku is a registered trademark.

© 2014 Roku, Inc. All rights reserved. ROKU, the ROKU Logo, ROKU READY, the ROKU READY Logo, "STOP DREAMING. START STREAMING.", "HAPPY STREAMING.", "THERE'S A TON OF ENTERTAINMENT IN THIS LITTLE BOX.", "STREAMING STICK", and "NOW THIS IS TV." are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Roku, Inc. in the United States and other countries.

[bbefilms]

"kc8pql" wrote:
The word Roku is a registered trademark.

True.

[destruk]

Just ask yourself - do you think "NikeExtreme" could possibly be confused by consumers as being part of the Nike brand due to its similarity to "NikeXtreme"? If yes, don't use it or they could shut you down.
Do you think perhaps, RokuDeveloper could be assumed by people to be affiliated, endorsed, or owned by Roku considering there is a Roku Developer Agreement that is? If not, get a lawyer to try to defend it or change the name.
If you change your website to be "BBEFilms Development" I'm sure nobody will mind.

A better question will be why does this forum insist on replacing the name " N I K E " with the letter x?