Chris Bosh is probably viewed as a hero in Toronto for his play on the court (especially if he decides to re-sign there). Today, he's viewed as somewhat of a cyber-hero for a result in the court, as he just won a legal case that freed up over 800 domain names from a cybersquatter. The domain names were transferred over into his possession.
This story from the New York Times this morning:
A federal judge in California has ordered a cybersquatter to surrender chrisbosh .com to Bosh, the Toronto Raptors forward, settling a lawsuit filed last year. But the court went a step further — or several hundred steps.
Judge Florence-Marie Cooper of United States District Court ordered Luis Zavala and his company, Hoopology .com, to release some 800 illegally registered domain names to Bosh.
According to the lawsuit, Zavala registered the Web addresses in order to sell them to those whose names he appropriate, in violation of federal law.
The only relevance this story has in terms of the Pistons is that of those 800 illegally registered domain names, Bosh now owns seven current Pistons' domain names, should they ever want to have their name serve as a personal website.
Those Pistons include Rodney Stuckey, Tayshaun Prince, Charlie Villanueva, Kwame Brown, Chris Wilcox, Dajuan Summers and Chucky Atkins. Notable former Pistons include Darko Milicic and Arron Afflalo.
I know Richard Hamilton's personal website is RipCity32.com, Ben Gordon's is BenGordon.com, and Charlie Villanueva actually has a website, but it's CV31.com. And maybe Rip and Charlie's websites are what they are because some cybersquatter bought their full names ahead of time hoping to sell them illegally if the players came asking, but the players didn't want to go through the trouble. Or they just didn't think of purchasing their names in addition to what they went with.
Either way, whether these Pistons and former Pistons want to start a personal website using their full names or not,, nearly 800 other NBA players and other big names know where to go now, if they decide they do. Chris Bosh and the law has taken care of the situation.