In April, 1997, Ticketmaster filed a complaint in federal court in the Central District of California alleging that "Microsoft's actions diluted their trademarks; created a false, deceptive and misleading representation that there was a formal relationship between the two of them; constituted unfair competition and business practices; and constituted a commercial misuse of their trademarks."
Microsoft at that time operated Sidewalk, a recreational and cultural guide Web site. What Microsoft was doing was simple -- if a Sidewalk user wanted to buy a ticket to a particular event mentioned on the site, Sidewalk offered them a link to Ticketmaster's ticket purchase page. They were actually promoting Ticketmaster sales and sending them customers. So, why would Ticketmaster complain about increased business traffic? Their gripe was that the link took the user directly to the event page, bypassing the advertising and other proprietary information on their home page. They apparently lost focus of the fact that Microsoft was sending them thousands of customers.
A month after the suit was filed, Ticketmaster blocked Sidewalk users from their site. Links set up from Sidewalk then took users to a Ticketmaster page that read, "This is an unauthorized link and a dead end for Sidewalk."
Status: In February of 1999, the 2-year-old lawsuit was settled out of court. "They settled on mutually agreeable terms," said Microsoft corporate spokesman Tom Pilla. Details of the settlement were not made public, but the deep links were removed, directing Sidewalk users to the Ticketmaster homepage.