PASADENA, California -- Internet search service GoTo.com Thursday said Walt Disney Co. and its Internet portal Go.com have agreed to pay $21.5 million to settle a long-running trademark dispute.
Pasadena-based GoTo.com sued Disney last year, claiming the Go.com's old yellow square and green circle logo, that looked much like a traffic light, infringed upon GoTo.com's trademark yellow background and green circle.
Go.com subsequently pulled the traffic light logo and now uses the word "Go.com" with a yellow arrow at the top of its home page on the Web.
Along with the payment, Disney and Go agreed to stop using the disputed logo and the current replacement, and they agreed to drop a counterclaim against GoTo.com.
"We decided the best course of action was to settle and focus on GO.com's future business," Go.com said in a statement.
A spokeswoman added that it plans to unveil a new logo when it relaunches Go.com as an entertainment-focused portal late this summer.
Disney formed Go in January 1999, after purchasing search engine Infoseek Corp. and merging its own websites like Disney.com, ESPN.com, and ABCnews.com with Infoseek under the "Go" umbrella.
The site was meant to be an all-encompassing portal combining search services with news, information, and original content that would compete with the likes of other portals like Yahoo or AOL.
Late in 1999, however, Go decided to refocus toward becoming a leisure, lifestyle, and entertainment-oriented site.
GoTo.com, by contrast, operates a search engine that links Web surfers with informational sites. GoTo.com said it reaches an estimated 22 million unique users.
