Typosquatting Trademark Protected Domain Names Reportedly Costs Brand Owners over $285 Million Dollars Annually

Of all the different forms of intentional bad faith cybersquatting on trademark protected domain names, typosquatting is one that drives trademark owners a bit crazy.  Registering a typographical variation of a famous brand name or high-traffic website just does not pass the smell test. 

Domainers often defend claims of cybersquatting when they are the registrant of a typographical variation of a high-traffic website typically focuses on the bad faith element.    Domainers often claim ignorance of the underlying trademark protected domain name and website or ignorance of their own domain portfolio.  The latter defense to cybersquatting is the most common.  The argument goes something like this.

Apple Registers 50 New Domain Names Associated with WWDC

Following Apple’s announcements at  The Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) on Tuesday, Apple secures 50 new domain names related to iCloud and features of iOS 5, according to MacRumors. 

- airplaymirroring.com
- appleairplaymirroring.com
- appledocumentsinthecloud.com
- applegestures.com
- appleicloudphotos.com
- appleicloudphotostream.com
- appleimessage.com
- appleimessaging.com
- appleiosv.com
- appleitunesinthecloud.com
- appleitunesmatch.com
- applelaunchpad.com
- applemailconversationview.com
- applepcfree.com
- applephotostream.com
- appleversions.com

Cybersquatting Law Firms | Cybersquatter Targets Mumford & Sons

Cybersquatting and Domain Dispute Update:

In our latest cybersquatting law firms news, Grammy performers Mumford & Sons look to be victims of cybersquatting / typosquatting trademark infringement.  Below are results from domaintool's domain typo search tool for the domain name mumfordandsons.com: 

Mufordandsons.com
Mumfordandson.com
Munfordandsons.com
Mumfordandsons.com
Mumfordandsons.net
Mumfordandsons.org

High traffic domains and high-profile celebrities and their domains are contantly under attack from habitual cybersquatters.  Take a look at the UDRP complaints filed against habitual cybersquatter, Ho Nim, in this Domainfight.net report.

 

 

 

Cybersquatting HuffingtonPost.com: Trademark Infringement Rampant on Popular Site

Cybersquatting and Domain Dispute Update:

The popular internet newspaper , The Huffington Post, which was recently purchased by AOL for $315 million, has fallen victim of trademark infringement as cybersquatting continues to grow.  Check out the full typographical error search result by domaintools.com for the domain name huffingtonpost.com. Above.com Domain Privacy holds the following domains:

Huffringtonpost.com           
Huffingtonpoist.com              
Huffingtonopst.com             
Huffingtomnpost.com          
Huiffingtonpost.com             
Huffingronpost.com              
Huffingtonpopst.com              
Huffiongtonpost.com           

High traffic websites continue to draw lots of typographical error cybersquatting complaints.   Look at these search results on the UDRP search engine, domainfight.net, for habitual cybersquatter and typosquatter Above.com.

related stories:

Celebrity Cybersquatting: Deceased Fitness Guru Jack Lalanne Under Attack

Recently deceased fitness guru Jack Lalanne is target of cybersquatters. Check out these web sites, which are typographical variations of the high traffic domain name www.jacklalanne.com and are clearly cybersquatting the famous name and brand:

Jacklalannes.org
Jacklalann.com
Jacklalannes.com
Jack-lalanne.com
Jacklalane.net

If you are a celebrity and wish to understand your rights to your brand and good name on the internet, contact one of our internet lawyers that regularly handle celebrity cybersquatting issues.

Cybersquatting Groupon in Australia: International Trademarks are also important in Protecting Your Domain Name

The deal-of-the-day website known as Groupon files a trademark lawsuit against the two Australian brothers, Gabby and Hezi Leibovitch, who started the clone website called Scoopon in Australia.  

Opportunistic cybersquatter Scoopon purchased the groupon.com.au domain name, registered the company name "Groupon Pty Limited", and filed for the Groupon trademark in Australia. Groupon owns the top level domain groupon.com and the registered Groupon trademark, which is registered with the United States Patent and Trademark Office.

Trademark Name Protection | Cybersquatting Hotel and Resort Trademark Protected Names

Our cybersquatting attorneys represent one of the largest premium resort chains in South America and have been in litigation on cybersquatting claims under the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act against a travel agency which registered over 20 domain names which include our client’s trademarked names.  That ACPA litigation (BD Real Hoteles, S.A. de C.V. v. VacationTours, Inc., Media Insight Group, Inc., et. al.) has been pending in Miami Florida since January 14, 2008.  Our attorneys were able to secure a large block of those domain names under the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) from the travel agency in favor of our resort hotel client in a fairly unusual case.

Cybersquatting American International Group

DomainFight.net reports the following Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy Proceedings brought by American International Group, Inc. (AIG), on October 8, 2006.  DomainTools.com reports the following typographical variations of “AIGInsurance”, most of which are cybersquatted WIPO typographical variations of the AIGInsurance.com domain.  These results don’t include the typosquatting on American International Group’s primary website, AIG.com.

It looks like American International Group did a better job protecting its domain name than it did running its business.

Domainers Take A Stand Against Cybersquatting: Rick Schwartz’s Silicon Valley TRAFFIC Show Will Focus on Eliminating Cybersquatters from the Community.

There was time when cybersquatting was pursued vigor as business model.  After trademark attorneys and their clients turned up the heat, attitudes changed somewhat.  Domainers sought to clean their portfolios of cybersquatted domains in order to avoid domain disputes under the UDRP and ACPA.  Several years ago, many top domainers really started to “talk the talk” lashing out against “black hat” cybersquatters within their midst.  Now, Rick Schwartz and Howard Neu have turned up the heat.  Realizing that cybersquatting may be more of a threat to the domainer industry itself, then to trademark holders, Rick appears to be signaling that the upcoming TRAFFIC Show in Silicon Valley (go ahead and register if you want to be a part of this event) will devote content and commentary to the issue of how cybersquatting hurts the domainer business, sours relationships with major players such as Google and Yahoo! and causes advertisers to opt-out of the domain channel.  Here’s the money quote:

Napster Teaches Us That Cybersquatting Can Best Be Fought By The Domainer Community

Alex Tajirian has an interesting post on CircleID about an issue which is getting lots of attention over the last 24 hours. Andrew Allemann wrote an editorial yesterdaytitled "How the Domain Industry Can Clean Itself Up" which we followed up on in a post "Do Domainers Deserve Their Repuation As Cybersquatters Because They Fail To Police Their Own?" Allen's post drew a lot of commentary, mostly supporting the prposition that it is time to step-up the self-policing of cybersquattign by the domain community. Alex Tajirian's post (coincidentially I think) analyzes the legal proceedings related to Napster, conlcudes that lawyers can not stop illigal practices on-line and provides specific ideas on how the community should self-police agasint domain name trademark abuse and on-line brand protection.

Domain Name Lessons from Napster

What can be done?

The domain name industry should get the message out to Internet users and brand owners that:

1. Indiscriminate legal action exasperates the problems associated with the use of brands in domain names.
2. A solution cannot come only from the side of the domain name industry; a cooperative solution is imperative.

The domain name industry is serious about fighting illegal use of brands in domain names.

How should our industry react?

1. Initiate media campaigns.
2. Openly discuss solutions in domain name conferences, as they are also attended by the media and brand owners.
3. Lobby Congress through the Internet Commerce Association (ICA) and domainer activism.
4. Discuss the problem and possible solutions in domain name forums and other relevant forums.
5. Take action against current monetizers that continue sponsoring obvious domain name violations.

Here are some comments from Andrew's DomainNameWire post.

• Sign me up…..I just put pressure on Godaddy yesterday by speaking to one of their “Quality Control” reps that wanted my opinion on Godaddy and TDNAM.
• Well done Andrew. Every VERY obvious TM infringing opportunity I find, I call the company’s legal department ask to speak to their IP lawyers and tell them about the obvious names that obviously infringe on THEIR intellectual property.
• I actually got a bit flush and panicky when I saw the Mozzilla.com sale. I felt a bit sick too. I was initially irritated that Ron listed it, but quickly got my wits about me - as he is just reporting these sales.
• Call the TM infringers on it. It’s wrong. It can’t be defended. And anyone with a modicum of good sense will not infringe on another’s trademark.
• I think a lot of people use the argument that companies shouldn’t police trademark sales on their auction sites because it’s difficult to “draw the line” between a real trademark and a bogus claim.

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