Corporate Arrogance on the Web

Yet another example of why corporations suck ass on the Web... Matt Lavallee has a personal domain, mattl.com, named, very obviously, by following one of the standard 'Net culture methods for forming a user name (first letter of first name + last name; first name + first letter of last name). But now MATTEL Corp has decided that Matt's site violates some copyright or trademarks rights of theirs, so they've sent him a 10-day cease-and-desist order.

Why, other than the fact that corporations already dominate the Web, do corporations think they can dominate the Web? Why would a corporation's "rights" outweigh a natural person's right to be called by their natural name?

In a vast sea of corporate nastiness on this issue, McDonald's deserves particularly vehement scorn on this account ( here and here).

Here's hoping that Matt Lavallee gives MATTEL the same black-eye that eToys got.