After establishing a loyal following of Sacramento State students, providing free e-mail services to nearly 600 people and reaching an average of 10,000 hits per day, the sacstate.com Web site was to shut down Jan. 20.

Where Internet surfers had previously been able to see the latest Hornet sports scores, browse comics and discuss campus life on the message boards, a blank “this page cannot be found” message now greets visitors.

“I got a letter from a patent and copyright attorney, telling me to shut [the site] down,” said sacstate.com Webmaster John Gladding, a 1996 Communication Studies graduate.

It was the Sac State Bookstore that asked its attorneys to contact the Sac State alumnus about his Web site.

“We were told by representatives to pursue it,” said Jerry King, of the O’Banion and Richey law firm.

Julia Milardovich, Bookstore director, confirmed that she was the one who started the inquiry into the legality of sacstate.com’s site, and its use of the phrase, “Sac State.”

“It’s the use of the word ‘sacstate.com’ that is a licensing issue,” she said.

According to the United States Patent and Trademark Office Web site, “Sac State” has been a registered trademark of the University since 1993.

The Bookstore itself acts as the licensing agent for the University and authorizes more than 50 vendors to use the trademark.

“The license vendors are required to report to us on a quarterly basis on all of their activities,” Milardovich said.

Sacstate.com was started nearly four years ago, and Gladding registered the domain name in November 1998. It was only after Gladding contacted the University to request permission to use the Hornet logo that the trademark question was raised.

“I wasn’t aware of the site [until then],” Milardovich said.

At the time, the Hornet logo had just been redesigned, and Gladding was told that the University had no policy regarding Internet usage of the logo. Milardovich said she met with several administrators, including Vice President for University Affairs Robert Jones and Vice President for Administration Ed Del Biaggio.

According to Gladding, that was the last he heard from the University until January, when he received the letter from the attorney. But Milardovich said that the administration decided that Gladding should not use the logo.

“We didn’t want official marks used on unofficial sites,” she said.”I didn’t know I was doing anything wrong,” Gladding said.

University Counsel Donna Selnick said that people could easily buy domain names that sound similar to Sac State’s name and then put pornography on them. Selnick was unaware of the current situation regarding sacstate.com and the University.

“They pretty much said, ‘Shut it down or we will sue you,'” he said. “I promptly canceled my season tickets.”

Gladding has started a new Web site, sactosaurus.com. The first article is titled, “The Rise & Fall of SacState.Bomb.”