Dennis Toeppen: Difference between revisions
→Bus Transportation: arrest, copied from Suburban Express. further discussion at Talk:Dennis_Toeppen#Arrest |
|||
| Line 93: | Line 93: | ||
Toeppen also started Allerton Charter Coach, a charter bus company with 3 buses and 4 vans as of 2014.<ref name="Allerton">{{cite web |url=http://www.allertoncharter.com/buses.html |title=Allerton website|accessdate=28 January 2014}}</ref> |
Toeppen also started Allerton Charter Coach, a charter bus company with 3 buses and 4 vans as of 2014.<ref name="Allerton">{{cite web |url=http://www.allertoncharter.com/buses.html |title=Allerton website|accessdate=28 January 2014}}</ref> |
||
In July 2014, owner Dennis Toeppen was arrested and charged with two counts of "harassment through electronic communications", a misdemeanor in Illinois.<ref>{{cite news|url=http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/07/bus-stopped-suburban-express-owner-makes-bail-after-e-harassment-arrest/|title=Update: Bus co. owner who threatened redditor with lawsuit arrested for cyberstalking | Ars Technica|work=[[Ars Technica]]|accessdate=12 July 2014}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://mugshots.news-gazette.com/detail/2073|title=DENNIS TOEPPEN - News-Gazette Mugshots|work=[[The News-Gazette (Champaign-Urbana)|The News-Gazette]]|accessdate=12 July 2014}}</ref> |
|||
== Cybersquatting activities== |
== Cybersquatting activities== |
||
Revision as of 02:20, 12 July 2014
Dennis Eric Toeppen | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1964 (age 59–60) |
| Nationality | United States |
| Education | BS, MS, MBA |
| Alma mater | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Northwestern University University of Chicago |
| Occupation | Bus company owner |
| Years active | 1983 - |
| Employer | Self-employed |
| Organization | Suburban Express |
| Website | toeppen |
Dennis Toeppen is an entrepreneur from central Illinois and the owner of bus company Suburban Express. [1] He is also known for being a party to two cases of First impression (law) relating to Domain Name registration.
Early life and education
Dennis Eric Toeppen grew up in Mount Prospect, Illinois. He graduated from Prospect High School in 1982 and enrolled at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), majoring in electrical engineering. He later changed his major to business, graduating from UIUC in 1987.[2] Thereafter, he obtained a bachelor's degree in economics University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), a master's degree in transportation from Northwestern University and an MBA from the University of Chicago.[3]
Bus Transportation
In 1983, Toeppen started Suburban Express, a bus company which provides transportation from UIUC and several other Midwestern universities to Chicago . After a price war with Greyhound which involved two Illinois Commerce Commission (ICC) investigations initiated by Greyhound, Suburban Express' ticket sales equaled that of Greyhound by 1985.[2]
In 2013, Suburban Express received a large amount of negative media coverage after people found out that they had filed 125 lawsuits against passengers that year, and threatened other people including a Reddit moderator.[4][5][6] The company withdrew its lawsuits after the negative publicity, only to reinstate many of them.[7]
Toeppen also started Allerton Charter Coach, a charter bus company with 3 buses and 4 vans as of 2014.[8]
In July 2014, owner Dennis Toeppen was arrested and charged with two counts of "harassment through electronic communications", a misdemeanor in Illinois.[9][10]
Cybersquatting activities
In 1995, Toeppen registered about 200 internet domain names including some which were similar to well known companies and popular trademarks.[11] Some of them included panavision.com (Panavision), deltaairlines.com (Delta Airlines), neiman-marcus.com (Neiman Marcus), eddiebauer.com (Eddie Bauer), and yankeestadium.com (New York Yankees).[11] Some of these companies, like Delta Airlines,[12] paid Toeppen to acquire the domain names from him.[13]
Panavision, a camera manufacturing company, sued Toeppen for trademark infringement instead of paying him $13,000 for the domain. The court ruled in favor of Panavision, forcing Toeppen to relinquish the domain name.[11][14][15][16] In a similar case, Intermatic Inc., a timer manufacturing company, sued Toeppen instead of paying him $5,000 for the domain name intermatic.com.[17] The case was ruled in favour of Intermatic.[11][18] In 1999, US congress made it illegal to knowingly register websites containing trademarks with the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act.[13]
References
- ^ Dodson, Don (1990-04-18). "News-Gazette (Champaign)" (PDF).
- ^ a b Rozek, Dan (1985-10-20). "Fare wars - Bus service run by student butts heads with Greyhound". Daily Herald (Arlington Heights).
- ^ "Dennis Toeppen's website". Retrieved 20 June 2013.
- ^ Gallagher, Sean (2013-04-26). "Express to Internet Hate: Bus company threatens redditor with lawsuit". Ars Technica.
- ^ Gallagher, Sean (2013-06-19). "Bus company that threatened redditor with lawsuit tries to reopen suit". Ars Technica.
- ^ Franz, Justin (2013-04-29). "Bus Company Threatens to Sue Redditor Over Bad Press". The Daily Dot.
- ^ Gallagher, Sean (2013-05-02). "Nonstop to schadenfreude: Suburban Express' u-turn on reddit lawsuit". Ars Technica.
- ^ "Allerton website". Retrieved 28 January 2014.
- ^ "Update: Bus co. owner who threatened redditor with lawsuit arrested for cyberstalking". Ars Technica. Retrieved 12 July 2014.
{{cite news}}: Text "Ars Technica" ignored (help) - ^ "DENNIS TOEPPEN - News-Gazette Mugshots". The News-Gazette. Retrieved 12 July 2014.
- ^ a b c d Bidgoli, Hossein. The Internet Encyclopedia: P - Z. p. 455.
- ^ Wayner, Peter (September 21, 1998). "Compressed Data; What's in a Web Name? Sometimes, Mistaken Identity". New York Times. Retrieved 2013-06-28.
- ^ a b Newenham, Pamela (2013-05-30). "Make sure you have control of your domain – or prepare to pay the price". The Irish Times. Retrieved 2013-06-28.
- ^ Spinello, Richard. Cyberethics: Morality and Law in Cyberspace.
- ^ Graham, Lawrence (1999). Legal Battles That Shaped the Computer Industry. Praeger. pp. 135–138. ISBN 1567201784.
- ^ Peter, Lewis (1996-09-12). "The Internet's Gatekeeper May Cash In on Its Role". The New York Times. Retrieved 20 June 2013.
- ^ Intermatic Inc. v. Toeppen, 947 F. Supp. 1227 (N.D. Ill. 1996).