Panda Smackdown!

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


You won’t find “Stone Cold” Steve Austin breaking a folding chair over the head of “Endangered Panda” Ling-Ling anytime soon — unless a courtroom can be considered a ring.

Recent Must Reads

10/28 – Vote ponies and ice cream

10/27 – Timor refugees make cheap labor

10/26 – Solar Power on a cloudy day

10/25 – Sing along with Mr. Torture

That’s because the World Wrestling Federation and the World Wildlife Fund share the same initials, but only one can own the Internet domain name WWF.com. Unfortunately for Ling-Ling, that address currently points to the wrestling site, while WWF.org points to the non-profit wildlife advocates. (On most browsers, if a user simply types WWF into the address field without a top-level domain designation — such as .org or .edu — the browser automatically tacks .com at the end. That means a lot of folks looking for fuzzy cuddly critters are likely finding burly guys in makeup instead.)

According to the SOUTH AFRICA INDEPENDENT, the World Wildlife Fund has sued the wrestling group for trademark infringement and violation of a 1994 agreeement which set out rules for sharing the initials. They hope a court will force the wrestlers to hand over the domain.

The wildlife group argues that changing WWF.com to point to their site could give millions of wrestling fans seeking mind-numbing entertainment a well-needed, if accidental, education.

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate