Defensive registration of .me domains to prevent cybersquatting

BUY ME DOMAINS: Why should you get your dot me domain?

But why should you get your own .me domain if you're very happy with your .com domain already? We'll because of the simple fact that somebody else just might register it and possibly sell it to you at a higher price! It's nothing new. Cybersquatting is everywhere and rampant. Cybersquatters are people registering different extensions of other people's domains in the hope that one day they will be approached by somebody, sell it and make a profit out of it.

Defensive registration of domain names to protect your trademark rights and defend against cybersquatting is an important part of any company's on-line brand protection program.

Technorati Tags: cybersquatting, .me, domain names, trademark

Google Sued For Offering Low Quality Pay Per Click Ads On Domain Parking Pages

Information Week reports that Google is being sued for fraud, unjust enrichment, and business code violations for its use of “low-quality” ads on parked domain names and error pages.  Google’s AdSense for Domains places advertisements on empty domain names, and its error pages program replaces 404 and other errors with pay per click ads.  According to the suit, Hal K. Levitte, a California attorney, used Google’s AdSense for Domains to park several unused domain names.  These domain names received a total of 202,528 impressions over the course of three months, but only 668 of those impressions resulted in clicks and 0 resulted in conversions.

Traverse Legal Cybersquatting News Alerts for Monday, July 21, 2008

A decision on a preliminary injunction motion by Finance Express in the Finance Express v. Nowcom Corp. case has come down in favor of Finance Express.  The court found that Finance Express would have been irreparably harmed if Nowcom was allowed to continue to register domain names containing Finance Express’s trademarks, to use those domains to redirect to a site housing misleading press releases to convince customers to use Nowcom, to “keyword stuff” by using Finance Express’s marks in its metatags, and to use “keying” to trigger banner ads when users search for Finance Express’s products.  Finance Express v. Nowcom Corp., 2008 WL 2477430 (C.D. Cal. 2008).

Domain Dispute Arbitration Panel Finds Authorize.net Waived Rights to Complain of Trademark Infringment After Over 10 Years of Use

Our friends over at domainnamewire.com recently picked up on an interesting case out of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO).  This case involves the waiver doctrine and the effect of permission on a domain name dispute.  Authorize.net, credit card payment service provider and owner of the AUTHORIZE.NET trademark, filed a proceeding with WIPO against Cardservice High Sierra for the use of the AUTHORIZE.NET trademark in their registered domain name at authorized.net.

Traverse Legal Cybersquatting News Alerts for Monday, July 14, 2008

A new version of typosquatting has recently come into play with ICANN’s allowance of Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs).  This new type of typosquatting consists of the registration of non-standard characters to replace letters in the URL, such as pàypal.com. 

Registering a Competitor's Trademark in a Domain Name is Never a Good Idea and Can Result in ACPA Damages and Injunction

It is never wise to register the trademark of a competitor in a domain name.  As Silver Ring found out, registering a competitor’s trademark in a domain name can subject you to the possibility of damages and a permanent injunction under the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act (ACPA).

If ICANN’s Domains Can Be Hacked, Then Your Domain Names Can Be Hacked

We get calls from companies all of the time indicating that they have lost control of their domain names.  Some companies have their registrant login information or email accounts hacked, providing the domain name thief direct access to the registrant account at the registrar level.  Some companies make critical mistakes in protecting their domain names, allowing for serious holes in their security and domain protections systems.  Other times, registrars simply screw up.

As is being reported at the domain name news, ICANN lost control of its valuable domain names as a result of a attack on the domain registrar register.com:  The full story is being reported in the New York Times in the article "ICANN Blames June Site Hijack on Registrar."   

Cybersquatting, Domain Theft and Domain Name Dispute Quicklinks

City in legal fight over golf course name
San Diego Union Tribune - United States
...It accuses Shah of cybersquatting by laying claim to names that incorporate The Crossings at Carlsbad name, but for which he has no bona fide ...

Available Now - 2008 Strategies for Trademark Disputes: Top ...
MarketWatch - USA
... for trademark and trade dress infringement, trademark counterfeiting, trademark dilution, cybersquatting, copyright infringement and false advertising. ...

Clowns Sue Seattle Rep
TheStranger.com - Seattle,WA,USA
... and violations of anti-cybersquatting law, rights of publicity and privacy, fraud, conversion, prima facie tort, and unjust enrichment. ...

10th Circuit Holds Noncommercial Use of Trademark for Parody or Criticism Not Trademark Infringement or Cybersquatting

Cybersquatting is a highly fact-based area of the law.  Sometimes the use of a trademark within a domain name, even where the trademark is fully appropriated, can be held to be a fair use.  This is especially true where a website is used to parody or criticize another.  A recent 10th Circuit decision, Utah Lighthouse Ministry v. Foundation for Apologetic Information and Research (FAIR), held that using a trademark within a domain name for the purposes of parody and criticism, even where the site links to another commercial site, is unlikely to cause confusion under the Lanham Act.  The court also held that this use was not cybersquatting under the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act (ACPA) because the defendant did not have a bad faith intent to profit in registering and using the similar domain names.

The Tension Between Trademark Holders and Domainers over the Definition of Cybersquatting

The tension between trademark holders and domainers continues to evolve and, by some accounts, intensify. Some domainers take issue with the definition of cybersquatting applied under the Uniform Domain-Name Dispute-Resolution Policy (UDRP) and the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act (ACPA).  These domainers believe that generic or descriptive words used in a domain name should be exempt from trademark rights.  Trademark holders remain concerned that their trademarks and service marks are constantly under attack in cyberspace and, further, see parked pages with PPC advertising links as little more than spam.  However, both legitimate domainers and trademark right advocates generally agree that cybersquatting and typosquatting are bad.  Both groups advocate aggressive enforcement against blatant cybersquatting.  Where they disagree is on the definition of what constitutes "cybersquatting."  You can read more about the three views of trademark cybersquatting on Traverse Legal's domain monetization blog.