Bob,

Having been through the trademark dance myself with Volvo in '97, I'm working with Lee on resolving this. The letter she received was from a private law firm acting on behalf of Volvo AB, not VCNA, not Ford, and was not disrespectful in tone.

The main issue is the use of the word 'volvo' as part of an Internet domain name. There are established guidelines for that (worked out between Dan Johnston -- then the VCNA PR guy -- VCNA legal, Volvo AB and me way back then), and it's really just a matter of making Lee's website conform to those guidelines. It's not clear to me that her logo is not acceptable. She will have to stop selling T-shirts and tote bags online, but that's a negative profit situation for her anyway; I don't think she minds.

I personally think this stuff is a silly waste of everyone's time when it involves what's clearly a non-commercial website, but in this case, it's hardly the proverbial 800-pound gorilla trying to smash the little guy. They have done that enough times, but that's not the case here.

Good for you to get PR involved, though -- can't hurt anything, as far as I can see.