Tyson Kirksey

You might have seen the news recently that country music singer Keith Urban is suing a lesser-known Keith Urban for the rights to the domain keithurban.com. The latter Urban is a painter who uses the site to showcase his work (along with his collection of Google Ads, oh wait…). WHOIS and Archive.org show painter Urban to have purchased the domain back in 1999, a year before singer Urban even released his first American album. Current cyber-squatting laws require a bad-faith intent for liability, so I’m thinking singer Urban is a long-shot here. Nevertheless, I’m following this lawsuit closely because it has implications for your’s truly…

Yes, that’s right, there is another Tyson Kirksey. Not only that, but he hails from East Texas and is similar in age. I remember several years ago a friend asking me if I doubled as the Lufkin High School star linebacker on the weekends (All-State 2003, no less). Linebacker Kirksey was recruited by Washington State University, and intends to play for the school during the 2007 season.

Now, chances are Linebacker Kirksey won’t be the next Brian Urlacher (who does have his own domain name), but you just never know, right? Here lately, I’ve been getting an unusual amount of visitors from Washington, either searching for ‘Tyson Kirksey’ or typing in the name directly. Here’s a few screenshots from my stats program from the last couple of days:

Yeah, not surprisingly, these folks are not interested in my dull comments on tech stuff and politics, so they leave immediately and vow never to return. Obviously there’s no bad-faith intent here, we just have the same name!

I do wish Linebacker Kirksey the best in his football endeavors and I seriously hope he makes it big-time. No, not for the additional website traffic I would receive; only to replace Mike Tyson as the standard response I get when I introduce myself (“oh, like Mike Tyson?”). I’m so sick and tired of that creep. Tysons everywhere deserve better, and since it doesn’t look like I’m doing much to liberate the name, I’m cheering for Linebacker Tyson.

Tyson Technology