Disney portal shifts strategy, may lose logo

In an interview, president Steve Wadsworth said the move was primarily aimed at improving branding and consumer awareness of the site, which has struggled to make inroads against portal leaders America Online and Yahoo. Currently, Go.com ranks sixth among the top portal sites, with 22 million monthly visitors, according to Internet data company Media Metrix. "Clearly, one of the reasons that you haven_t seen a lot of momentum is because in my mind we have not delivered a distinctive and clear message about what our consumer proposition is," Wadsworth said. "Our site looks a hell of a lot like every other portal. This strategy gives us the opportunity to create a very clear proposition." Additionally, a federal appeals court has ordered the Walt Disney Co. to immediately remove its Go.com logo from TV ads and Web sites until a trademark infringement trial brought by Internet search service GoTo.com is resolved. Thursday_s order from the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco reinstates an earlier temporary injunction that Disney had sought to overturn. A trial date has not yet been set, but preliminary hearings in the case are scheduled for March, GoTo representatives said Friday.