HealthNet (4)
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TRAPPED IN A HEALTH NET
A domain name dispute rages between a big HMO and a tiny nonprofit
that links together third world health-care providers.
By Andrew Leonard
Nov. 22, 1999 - Salon.com
Domain name squabbles are a dime a dozen in the dot-com era, but it's
hard to imagine a face-off with juicier WWF-style smackdown potential
than the dispute between HealthNet, a huge California HMO, and Satel-
Life, a tiny nonprofit that links together third world health-care
providers.
At dispute is the domain name "healthnet.org." Holly Ladd, executive
director of SatelLife, says the nonprofit has been operating an in-
ternational low-cost e-mail network under the name HealthNet for at
least 10 years. In May 1993, SatelLife registered the domain name.
Then, three years later, along came HealthNet, the HMO, snapping up
"healthnet.com" and "healthnet.net."
In August, says Ladd, the California HMO sent a letter to SatelLife
demanding that it cease using the term "healthnet" and give up the
domain name healthnet.org.
"There's really only one issue," says Dan Niccum, vice president of
communications and public relations at HealthNet. "Our name is
HealthNet -- it is a registered trademark and has been since 1981.
The only issue here is that a company is violating a legal trade-
mark."
Niccum says that if SatelLife had done even a cursory trademark
search when it first chose the name HealthNet for its e-mail network,
the nonprofit would have discovered that the name was already regis-
tered.
But Ladd says there was no reason to think that a network aimed at
poor third world countries would be confused with a California health
insurance organization. "We've spent 10 years doing work on the
ground in Africa under the name HealthNet," says Ladd. "They aren't
just asking us to change our domain name -- they are asking us to
change our entire international identity, and walk away from all the
goodwill that we have, and put at risk a huge network of health-care
providers over all the world that rely on us."
Ladd says that the HMO would have to demonstrate that the "health-
net.org" domain name is causing "confusion" in the marketplace to win
its case. And even though both organizations can broadly be consid-
ered as operating in the area of health care, Ladd says that there
shouldn't be any confusion.
"Our folks are almost exclusively in Africa, Asia and Latin America,"
says Ladd. "We are not a health provider or an insurance company, and
we don't think that people will be confused. We've offered to put a
disclaimer on our Web site, but they are not interested."
On Nov. 17, SatelLife filed for a "declaratory judgement" in a Massa-
chusetts court. Ladd says that the nonprofit would have preferred
some kind of compromise, but that her overtures were "rebuffed."
Niccum says SatelLife is the party refusing to settle.
"We will protect our trademark," says Niccum. "But as far as working
with them on the timing of any change, or working with them and as-
sisting them in any name change -- we contacted them in good faith
and were rebuked."
Niccum acknowledges that the conflict between his company and a tiny
nonprofit that specializes in helping physicians in some of the poor-
est countries in the globe isn't the ideal public relations scenario
for HealthNet. "It doesn't make a good story," says Niccum. "But just
because you are a nonprofit doesn't give you the right to violate ex-
isting legislation." salon.com - Nov. 22, 1999
....by the way I think Dan's email address is <Dan.Niccum@healthnet.com>
--
Holly Ladd
mailto:hladd@usa.healthnet.org
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