ScienTOMogy

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ScienTOMogy is a parody site lampooning Tom Cruise's involvement with Scientology. The concept was created by New Zealand webmaster Glen Stollery on a website called scientomogy.info in mid 2005.

The website drew worldwide headlines when the Church of Scientology's attorneys Moxon & Kobrin contacted Stollery, claiming the ScienTOMogy domain name was an infringement of their trademark, despite being a different word by one letter. In September 2005 the Church of Scientology issued a cease and desist order to Stollery demanding he shut down the site and transfer ownership to the Church, threatening him with a $100,000 lawsuit. The Church's law firm stated that "ScienTOMogy" would cause a likelihood of confusion with "Scientology," violating the Lanham Act, 15 U.S.C. 1125(a).

Stollery originally relented and agreed to change the domain name to passionofcruise.info. However his response made it clear: "We also have a full disclaimer at the top of the front page and in the website's meta-tags stating that there is no connection between ourselves and the church. Not to mention the fact that the site is completely non-commercial in nature, and does not generate a single cent of revenue nor offers any services of any kind. It is a parody site showing the recent lunacy of Tom Cruise - confusion of any kind with their site is literally impossible."^[1]

After consulting lawyers in October 2005, Stollery responded once again to the church, this time with a far more aggressive stance. Now believing the accusation to be completely frivolous, Stollery publicly refused, challenging the Church in a public statement with the words "I'm keeping my domain, see you in court". Ironically, the threats took the ScienTOMogy website from around 100 hits per day to over 14 million hits in a two-week period, making the Alexa Internet list of "Top 5 fastest growing websites in the world" over the period.^[2] Stollery is still waiting for the Church's response to his challenge.