Sentech threatens legal action

Sentech's threat to take legal action against Roelf Diedericks, owner of the Web site www.mywirelesssucks.co.za, has resulted in Diedericks taking the site down. However, Diedericks says he hopes to reopen the site under another domain name.

Diedericks, an IT professional, says he bought the domain names www.sentechsucks.co.za and www.mywirelesssucks.co.za and launched his page, entitled “Sentech's MyWireless sucks”, to put pressure on Sentech to improve the slow download speeds on its MyWireless service.

“All I wanted was an improvement in the download speed, an apology from Sentech for the problem experienced over the last two months and a logical explanation of what exactly is wrong,” he says.

Sentech's lawyers, Bowman, Gilfillan, John and Kernick, sent Diedericks a letter yesterday demanding he take the sites down. The letter says while Sentech gave Diedericks a written invitation to resolve the manner, he refused to be amicable in resolving the matter and embarked on a “reckless and malicious course by pursuing grievances, which infringe on our client's common law and intellectual property rights”.

The letter adds that while Sentech is not opposed to people airing their grievances in a sober, responsible manner, Diedericks' “use of its [Sentech's] marks in the domain names...infringes on its various rights at Common Law. Our client is also entitled to protect its good name and reputation.”

The letter gave Diedericks until the close of business today to take down the sites or face legal action.

Diedericks says he has no desire to face a trademark battle with Sentech and therefore took the content off the site. Sentech has agreed to pay Diedericks the R300 he spent to register the sites and will take ownership of the domain names.

Related stories:

• MyWireless is My Belief

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