Saturday, March 24, 2007

Alexaholic/Statsaholic

Last year Ron Hornbaker started a website called Alexaholic.com that displayed Alexa traffic graphs. This website very clearly misappropriated the Alexa name, which isn't something that Alexa tolerates under any circumstances. We reached out to Mr. Hornbaker last year in an attempt to resolve the problem amicably. We even explored an acquisition, which we didn't have to do. Unfortunately, it became clear over time that Mr. Hornbaker did not want to stop trading off the Alexa name. This left Alexa with no alternative but to bring legal action to recover the misappropriated name. Even that action did not stop Mr. Hornbaker. Now, in what amounts to an apparent admission that Alexa has a right to its name, Mr. Hornbaker has renamed Alexaholic, calling it "Statsaholic." But he is still trading off the Alexa brand by using the Alexaholic domain to direct traffic to his new URL. Furthermore, Mr. Hornbaker is in fact not using our web service to generate the traffic graphs on his website. Instead of obtaining the traffic data for a fee using the API which Alexa offers, he has chosen to pirate proprietary Alexa data by taking Alexa traffic graphs without permission. Mr. Hornbaker is now trying to extract more value from Alexa by turning this into a PR issue, which he admits is a deliberate strategy.

Alexa doesn't take the decision to bring legal action lightly but will do so when required. We'll pursue this issue aggressively and intend to recover the Alexaholic URL and to ensure that Mr. Hornbaker is held accountable for misappropriating our graphs and data.