Cybersquatting

[Sage]

As many of you know, sometimes a smart person will discover that a domain name has not been registered by a company, and so that person will buy the domain and then charge huge amounts of money when the company finally decides it wants it.

For example, let’s pretend that Mazda hasn’t discovered the Internet yet (they’re too busy making awesome cars ), so it doesn’t have a company website. Some guy comes along, thinks “Wow, I should register Mazda.com, then sell it to Mazda for a huge profit!”, and follows through with that plan. Mazda discovers the Internet, wants a website, finds that Mazda.com is already taken, and so pays a ginormous wad of cash to get the domain.

What are your thoughts on the legality of this?

Here are my two main (conflicting) thoughts:

1) Hey, they found it first, they have every right to sell it for ridiculous profit. If I can buy some land and turn around and sell it for thousands more, why not a domain name?

2) The company’s trademark gives it a right to that domain. By buying Mazda.com, you are effectively saying that you are the “Mazda Company”. You’ve basically stolen the company’s identity, though indirectly (you haven’t stolen the logo or anything, but you’ve stolen the implicit name). This is the problem with my land analogy – there’s no identity to that land, just a bunch of dirt. Domain names have an inherent identity though.

So, what do you think? I’m totally unresolved.

 

[Kylehnat]

People that do it sell-out for a very low price, in the grand scheme of things. That guy who has Mazda.com will give it up gladly for $10,000. That's a drop in the hat for Mazda.

That same guy runs the risk of being taken to court over it by the company, and unless he is actually using the domain for something, he will probably lose the case and have to give it up for nothing.

 

[wfooshee]

You can own the domain name, just holding it, and not be in violation of their trademark. If you publish a site on there, or try to do stuff with it, then you may have troubles.

The company I work for used to be a franchise, then the home company dissolved, we actually bought the trademark. Our domain name was set up while a franchise, so we couldn't use the company name. We used {name-changed-to-protect-the-innnocent}net.com, instead of {name-changed-to-protect-the-innnocent}.com. The owner of {name-changed-to-protect-the-innnocent}.com is not using the domain, is out of business, but apparently greedy, will not sell it to us. We own the trademark, he owns the domain name.

To expand on your example, I'm not sure how things like clubs work, like miata.net. Are they violating the trademark? They're using it, but the same way a club called the Miata Club would be using it. Apparently not a problem, Mazda doesn't want the domain.

Now what if racing driver Scott Goodyear registered goodyear.com before the tire company did? As long as he didn't sell tires, he'd be OK, the tire company would be SOL, have to use goodyearrubber.com or something. Or try to make Scott rich.

 

[daan]

www.nissan.com

Before you click that, try and think who owns it. Its not who you think...

 

[ExigeEvan]

IMO this is comparable to buying a plot of land before the big supermarkets catch wind of it (If that's possible), and then selling it on for a huge premium. Ok, it is not the same as no connection to the company is made through name but it's a similair principle.

Aslong as the user of a site make no connection to the better known company I don't see what is wrong. And buying the name just because some big corporate hasn't already seems fair game to me.

 

[F1GTR]

Do what Sony did with granturismo.de, sue them.

 

[ExigeEvan]

Do what Sony did with granturismo.de, sue them.

I think that case is different.

Sony wanted the side but couldn't just sue them for using teh name. But when they went on the site they found they were using the GT logo without permission. They then used the domain name as the settlement.

 

[dbartucci]

IMO this is comparable to buying a plot of land before the big supermarkets catch wind of it (If that's possible), and then selling it on for a huge premium. Ok, it is not the same as no connection to the company is made through name but it's a similair principle.

I don't think buying land is analagous to cyber-squatting, unless you have some information that makes that land more valuable. To me squatting is as Sage defined it, registering domain names you think some large firm would want to own purely with a view to sell it to the company. If you're running a firm with different products and are in no way connected to the other company and you happen to beat them to the name, that's bad luck or a poor strategy by the other firm.

So for land to be similar you would have to almost know some parcel of land will be very valuable to a specific company in the near future and buy it with the intent of selling it for a high price.

But in the case of Nissan Computers, I don't think this is cyber-squatting.
Example, I alone register mcdonalds.com with no business interest and purely to sell it to the fast-food chain for some outrageous sum - cyber-squatting
I run a small clothing store that's named McDonald's and is in no way connected to the fast-food chain and want to advertise on the web so I get mcdonalds.com - not cyber-squatting.


EDIT: in order to sue someone, you must have registered the trademark in that country (it's likely registering in one EU country covers you for all), and you have to prove that they're using your name, logo, or goodwill to confuse consumers into thinking you're somehow related to them. If they have an unrelated business you probably won't win. See my McDonald's example above.

 

[Solid Lifters]

Big businesses can successfully sue those that have taken their company name and have used it for their personal website. I'm all for it.

I'm surprised to read the Nissan Motor Company couldn't get the Nissan website address. Nissan Computers? Yeah right.

If my last name was McDonald, could I open up a business and call it McDonald's? I don't think I should be able to. McDonald's has made a named for itself with that name already.

I feel the same way about the Nissan issue. Why doesn't he call his website Nissan Personal Computers? He's obviously taking unfair advantage of the established Nissan name for free advertisement. He knows people will enter "NISSAN.COM" looking for Nissan cars, but will get his website instead. I feel that's unfair.

 

[dbartucci]

I think if two businesses are so completely different that there is no way anyone would confuse them there's no reason why they can't have the same common name, keeping in mind that their actual registered name is some series of numbers.

 

[Pupik]

I think it's okay to own any domain name, as long as you aren't in direct competition with the company or entity that owns the name, at least in terms of buisness.

What grates me is when a domain name is used for other purposes that purposefuly run counter to the essence to the name itself, but I suppose that's the right of free speech.

If you start to make laws concerning what a company is entitled to in terms of domain names, then a company like Ford is going to sue everyone that's using the word "ford" in their domain name (personal websites, anything that has a word with "ford" spelled out in it, and combinations of the word Ford in the web site name).

Therefore, I feel a company has no right to sue over a domain name's usage, unless it's used for slander, because it sets a dangerous precendent for a company to feel the need to own everything relating to thier name.

Of course, anyone in their right mind would run the site they're looking for first with a well-known search engine first, lest unwanted boobies appear. Problem solved in most cases!

[deletes Bernie Eccelstone's cease-and-desist e-mail]

 

[wfooshee]

Big businesses can successfully sue those that have taken their company name and have used it for their personal website. I'm all for it.

I'm surprised to read the Nissan Motor Company couldn't get the Nissan website address. Nissan Computers? Yeah right.

If my last name was McDonald, could I open up a business and call it McDonald's? I don't think I should be able to. McDonald's has made a named for itself with that name already.

I feel the same way about the Nissan issue. Why doesn't he call his website Nissan Personal Computers? He's obviously taking unfair advantage of the established Nissan name for free advertisement. He knows people will enter "NISSAN.COM" looking for Nissan cars, but will get his website instead. I feel that's unfair.

He's been doing business under that name since Nissan was known as Datsun, and registered the domain first. It's a legitimate business name. He's not infringing in any way, in my opinion. Nissan needs to:

a. back off

b. try to make Mr. Nissan rich (maybe they already tried to buy the domain)

You couldn't call your business McDonald's, but you could call it McDonald's Hardware, or McDonald's Furniture, whatever. If mcdonalds.com became available, buy it and use it. It might be in better taste to use mcdonaldsfurniture.com, but who wnats their customers or email correspondents to do all that typing?

 

[Solid Lifters]

He's been doing business under that name since Nissan was known as Datsun, and registered the domain first. It's a legitimate business name. He's not infringing in any way, in my opinion. Nissan needs to:

a. back off

b. try to make Mr. Nissan rich (maybe they already tried to buy the domain)

You couldn't call your business McDonald's, but you could call it McDonald's Hardware, or McDonald's Furniture, whatever. If mcdonalds.com became available, buy it and use it. It might be in better taste to use mcdonaldsfurniture.com, but who wnats their customers or email correspondents to do all that typing?

I still feel what Mr. Nissan is doing is squating. Nissan Motor Company was around way before he was. True, they used the Datsun name up untile, what, 1984? When did he start his computer business? After that.

Ask yourself this, what company spends billions advertizing as NISSAN? it isn't Mr. Nissan, now is it?

 

[Speedy Samurai]

I still feel what Mr. Nissan is doing is squating. Nissan Motor Company was around way before he was. True, they used the Datsun name up untile, what, 1984? When did he start his computer business? After that.

Ask yourself this, what company spends billions advertizing as NISSAN? it isn't Mr. Nissan, now is it?

You need to read this page, Solid.

http://www.nissan.com/Digest/The_Story.php

It seems to go back and forth. If the guy registered his own name years before the car company thought to, then snooze ya looze.

 

[a6m5]

I read the Mr. Nissan's side of story on his website a while back. I almost bought the "This is my last Nissan" bumper sticker. Anyway, Nissan at the time was my favorite auto company, so I wrote them a email regarding the situation, politely asking if Nissan Computer is right or if Nissan Motors has their side of the story. Nissan's answer: nothing. So, I've been on Nissan Computer's side, since. But Solid Lifters has a good point. Out of millions of people who visit www.nissan.com, what percentage of them are actually looking for Nissan Computer? I'd guess less than 1%.

I think the problem is, Nissan lawyers are being ______s(use your imagination here). If I was Nissan, I'd offer a compromise. Nissan Motors buys Nissan.com, turns it into a directory to Nissan Motors or Nissan Computer. Just make it clear that two companies are not related in any way.

 

[Solid Lifters]

You need to read this page, Solid.

http://www.nissan.com/Digest/The_Story.php

It seems to go back and forth. If the guy registered his own name years before the car company thought to, then snooze ya looze.

I did read it, and think that guy should be sued. I think he should be forced to give the website address NISSAN.COM to the Nissan Motor Company.

 

[Diego440]

Even worse, about five years or so ago, Madonna wanted to register madonna.com; but it turned out an order of nuns who run the Madonna Rehabilitation Hospital in Lincoln, Nebraska had alreayd registered the name ("madonna" means "virgin" in Italian). Well, Madonna sued the nuns and even won. Hence it's now why www.madonna.com goes to the singer's website.

Here's the story
http://www.cwnews.com/news/viewstory.cfm?recnum=14129

 

[ledhed]

seems like a good way to make money. Especially for lawyers.

 

[Rogue Ssv]

Cool. I want to register CheryNA.com
I would sell it to them for $100,000, which would bankrupt them, killing another useless crap car company!
I think they can do whatever they want, I mean, the companies can always do something like
nissanamerica.com
nissanna.com
nissanofna.com
nissan.eu.com
nissan.na.com
there are millions of possibilities.

 

[Jedi2016]

I've actually had this happen to me once, when a squatter jumped in on my domain name in the tiny bit of time between it's old registration expired, before I could re-register it elsewhere.

In fact, it's happened twice, under different circumstances. What I can't figure out is why these people were so insistent on getting my name, since it's not worth anything to them, and only got a few thousand hits even when it was active.

So, in my opinion, they should all be drug out into the street, shot, castrated, anally raped with a bandsaw, and finally drawn and quartered. Then burned. And I'll be there to piss on the ashes.

 

[Diego440]

So, in my opinion, they should all be drug out into the street, shot, castrated, anally raped with a bandsaw, and finally drawn and quartered. Then burned. And I'll be there to piss on the ashes.

you really ought to get that prescription refilled

 

[dbartucci]

Cool. I want to register CheryNA.com
I would sell it to them for $100,000, which would bankrupt them, killing another useless crap car company!
I think they can do whatever they want, I mean, the companies can always do something like
nissanamerica.com
nissanna.com
nissanofna.com
nissan.eu.com
nissan.na.com
there are millions of possibilities.

Sure, but there are 2 things at play here.

One, you want to prevent someone from tricking your customers into thinking you're affiliated with the other firm, using your goodwill for their profit, for which the legal remedy is an injunction, followed by them turning the URL over to you and paying some damages for your lost business.

The second aspect is wanting to secure the most logical and direct URL for your firm. In North America by far the most common URL is [company name].com, so if you're a firm you don't want to have nissanna or anything else that expands or complicates the name. Then you register all other combinations and direct link them to the full site with the main url you want to use. For example Mercedes-Benz's website is mercedes-benz.com, then have links to the different jurisdictional sites on this page. However, you can also enter the name without the "-" and it takes you to the same page, so does just mercedes.com. Adding letters and especially adding . allover a URL complicates it for the end user to enter and makes it harder to remember. In that business you must assume your customers know very little about computers and how to browse the internet, because if your site is hard to find, chances are a great deal of people won't find it.

 

[Robin]

I say fair play to people being clever and buying domain names and selling them on..... its all fair, if I company wants it bad then they should pay for it like everyone else......

I can imagine people like nintendo who change the name of their console at the last minute would have pissed some people off! Who would have bought wii.com! Maybe thats why they changed the name, to pricey to buy the domain they wanted

 

[a6m5]

I say fair play to people being clever and buying domain names and selling them on..... its all fair, if I company wants it bad then they should pay for it like everyone else......

I can imagine people like nintendo who change the name of their console at the last minute would have pissed some people off! Who would have bought wii.com! Maybe thats why they changed the name, to pricey to buy the domain they wanted

I never thought about stuff like that. NintendoRevolution.com

 

[Danoff]

I think it's fair. They got there first. And about the supermarket thing, if you buy land that a supermarket wants to you, they have to pay you for it. That's the deal.


Trademarks are designed to make sure that customers don't confuse your company with some other company. Without trademarks no company could build up a good name because others could come along and trick customers into thinking they're buying from someone they're not. Trademarks are NOT designed to ensure that you're the only one who has the right to a certain name. Nissan only has a case if they can reasonably show that customers are being tricked into purchasing from nissan.com thinking it's the car company's brand.

 

[McLaren]

Here's my problem. The guy's company is called Nissan Computer Corp. Ok, why not call your website that?

Why even name your website after your last name anyways!? People are looking for computers, not some guy named Nissan. When people are looking for computers, what are they most likely to think has to do with computers?
Nissan.com or NissanComputerCorp.com? Nissan has made a name for itself, so no matter what this guy does, squatting on the Nissan.com domain won't do anything for him.

 

[Famine]

Here's my problem. The guy's company is called Nissan Computer Corp. Ok, why not call your website that?

Why even name your website after your last name anyways!?

Why not?

Where do you think Honda got their name from? Or DeLorean, Cizeta, Ferrari, Lamborghini, Pagani, Bugatti (etc.)?

His name is Nissan. He bought nissan.com to use for his company, Nissan Computers. He got there first and is not impersonating Nissan Motors (incidentally, why should Mr. Nissan have to call his website NissanComputerCorp.com when your saying that Nissan shouldn't have to call theirs NissanMotors.com - which is their US registered name - after all, HE DID get there first) for trade. Nissan should just admit they got there second and butt the hell out.

Having a registered company name in one territory doesn't automatically give you all rights to that name worldwide.

 

[McLaren]

True, but I still think he's squatting.

He knows people aren't looking for his site most of the time when they type in Nissan.com.

And even then, he's not getting any business from them. They're just going to move on.

 

[Diego440]

well, I seriously doubt the people who are looking for the White House news expect what they get when they enter whitehouse.com .

It used to be a porn site, now it's a free speech site. Nasa.com used to be porn too. And for some time phillipmorris.com used to be a boycott/anti-philip morris website.

Is that cybersquatting? or even worse, e-lying?

 

[Danoff]

Is that cybersquatting? or even worse, e-lying?

It's illegal if they hold themselves out to be the other company. It's not fraud if you go someplace where you expect one thing and find another.

There are lots of cases where companies have the same name. What determines whether it's trademark infringement often comes down to the style of lettering of the sign, the color, any pictures or logos. If it appears as though it's intended to make the customer think it's a different establishment with an established trademark - it's infrigement.

If you have two companies named nissan or two organizations named nasa each with websites, there is no way for the customer to know which one they're logged into until you see the logo or lettering inside. Until the nissan website puts up the nissan logo and makes you think you've visited Nissan's official page, or the nasa website puts up the nasa logo (you should know better than to go to nasa.COM too), it's not trademark infringement.

The law exists to protect companies from having their reputation (one could argue this is property) used to take their business. It also protects consumers from mistaking one company for another.

Until either of those things happens with a website, nobody should be claiming there is a trademark issue... which leaves the issue to a first-come-first-served basis.