Domain-Name Wars, Rise of the Cybersquatters

CWmike writes "When FreeLegoPorn.com began publishing pornographic images created with Lego toys, Lego acted quickly. "The content available on the site consisted of animated mini-figures doing very explicit things. We were not amused," says Peter Kjaer, an attorney for Denmark-based Lego. Lego didn't go to court. Instead it filed a complaint with the World Intellectual Property Organization, which ruled in its favor. The domain registrar for FreeLegoPorn.com, GoDaddy.com, eventually shut down the site and transferred the domain name to Lego under ICANN rules. But it's not just Lego and Verizon that are suffering. Green energy is a hot topic, so cybersquatters have been targeting wind and solar energy start-ups. And malicious sites can create havoc with a brand's reputation. Cybersquatting activity rose by 18% last year, with a documented 440,584 cybersquatting sites in the fourth quarter of last year alone, according to MarkMonitor's annual Brandjacking Index report. And WIPO cited an 8% jump in dispute filings in 2008, to 2,329 complaints — a new record. Now, ICANN is preparing to open a potentially unlimited number of new top-level domains as early as the first quarter of 2010."

Comments

freelegoporn.com is not cybersquatting

[Delusion_]

freelegoporn.com is not cybersquatting. It's parody. The difference is crucial.

Just because a rights-holder says otherwise doesn't make it so.

Re:freelegoporn.com is not cybersquatting

[Delusion_]

Trademark infringement should definitely be protected by fair use. Parody is fair use. The courts have not been consistent on this issue, however.

Re:freelegoporn.com is not cybersquatting

[morgan_greywolf]

Trademarks are certainly not protected by fair use. Fair use is an affirmative defense in copyright infringement cases, not trademark infringement cases. A company that registers a trademark must, by law, defend that trademark in court against all infringers it has knowledge of.

Re:freelegoporn.com is not cybersquatting

[dgatwood]

Wrong. Fair use is also a defense in trademark infringement cases. Fair use of a trademark includes things such as descriptive use, e.g. "Similar to Kleenex", use in advertising by resellers, and a whole host of other things.

The article Fair Use of Trademarks is a good read on the subject.

Re:freelegoporn.com is not cybersquatting

[mdwh2]

But trademark law doesn't prevent any use of the word at all - this isn't like patent or copyright law. It only affects commercial usage. After all, I can say Lego Lego Lego here all I like, without being in violation of trademark law - it's only when I sell something called "Lego" that I risk a lawsuit.

In this case, it's unclear that there website was commercial - given the "free", I'm guessing not.

Trademark does not - or should not - allow companies to shut someone down merely for using a word. Trademark is intended for a specific purpose, and not to allow companies to own words in general.

IMHO

[Jaysyn]

It sounds like LEGO are being IP bullies. If they can do that to FreeLegoPorn.com, they can probably do it to LEGOSucks.com.

Re:IMHO

[0100010001010011]

penismightier.com? Who will think of the pen companies?
analbumcover.com? Who will think of the RIAA?
therapists.com? Who will think if the US Therapy association?

Re:IMHO

[Arthur Grumbine]

-1 Coming-out-of-the-hole-you've-been-living-in

The way it should be

[C_Kode]

They should make it where the price of a domain doubles for each domain you have registered.

1. $35
2. $70
3. $105 ...etc.

That would raise the annual price of owning two domains to $105 and $210 for three, $420 for four, $840 for five and so on. That keeps the price relatively cheap for people who just want a personal domain or small businesses, but the domain squaters will be rendered out of business for the most part.

I want to see someone squat 1,000 domains at those prices.

Re:The way it should be

[Minwee]

Well, it's a good thing there are 10,000 other domain squatters with very similar names all sharing the same PO box with me. This way we can each just buy one for the lowest price.

Re:The way it should be

[bwhaley]

One could argue that this is abusing the domain name system's original intent. To continue your example, why does Ford need taurus.com, fusion.com, mustang.com, etc? They should be using subdomains: taurus.ford.com. mustang.ford.com. The make and model are both instantly more recognizable, as is the Ford brand in general.

The Internet would be a better place if the marketing people would focus on marketing problems and let the technology people implement solutions.

WIPO sucks ass crackers.

[Kenja]

Cant afford to send a legal team to Sweden? Then you lose. Company I work for had their domain (and thus their company name) taken away, not because it was being misused or anything like that, but because we couldn't afford to go defend ourselves. Now if you go to the domain there's just a diatribe against us full of false claims and BS.

Re:WIPO sucks ass crackers.

[ACMENEWSLLC]

I went through WIPO arbitration. Someone wanted to take one of my domains away from me. I replied with a proper reply and ended up keeping my domain.

The arbitration goes to an individual or multiple individuals. It really depends on the individual you get. Looking through prior arbitration, I saw how mine could have gone either way.

Citation Needed

[kbolino]

"And malicious sites can create havoc with a brand's reputation."

Apparently, proving this statement is left as an exercise for the reader.

Not FreeLegoPorn, but real cybersquatting.

[Adrian Lopez]

Whether Lego -- which I generally perceive as far too litigious -- was right or wrong in its action against FreeLegoPorn.com, at least that was being used to host legitimate content. What really bugs me is domain owners who buy up a bunch of domain names to extort money out of those with a legitimate interest in them, or those who buy up a bunch of domain names for no other reason than to host advertising pages (which I consider a form of DNS spam).

Re:Down with Domain Resellers!

[idontgno]

I'm just sick of how cybersquatters have stolen my name! I, a famous and dead Ukrainian novelist, wanted to set up my own blog using my own domain! I'm heartsick that my name is being squatted because of its passing similarity to some search engine! The injustice!

Signed,
Nikolai Gogol

Not really increasing compared to domain names

[Rovastar]

According to netcraft in the last year there has been about 40% increase in fully qualified domain names out there (includes subdomains not just top level so not a perfect stat but a good indication)

June 2008 172,338,726 FQDNs (http://news.netcraft.com/archives/2008/06/index.html)
June 2009 238,027,855 FQDNs (http://news.netcraft.com/archives/2009/06/17/june_2009_web_server_survey.html)

So really you could say that cyber squatting is decreasing relative to the increase in domain names........

Not really increasing compared to domain names

Trademark rights do not exclude parody.

[spun]

Ah, but trademark rights do not protect against parody in the first place. You wouldn't even need to use a fair use defense, if you aren't using the trademark as a trademark on similar products then you aren't infringing the trademark rights.

Free Typosquatting Scan Tool With Screenshots

[typosquatting]

There's a new, free typosquatting scan tool at aliasencore.com. It shows you all the registered .COM domain names that are one character misspellings of any Alexa top 100,000 site you enter. It also displays screenshots of those typosquatting sites. It's a nifty way to get a quick idea of the rampant growth of typosquatting (which is a subset of cybersquatting). Here's an example that shows the 431 registered .COM domain names that are one character away from google.com.

Full disclosure: I am Graham MacRobie, the CEO of Alias Encore, Inc. We help companies recover cybersquatting domain names, but we focus solely on "slam-dunk" typosquatting cases, not questionable cybersquatting cases such as the one mentioned in this article.

Re:I'm not a violent person

[meta-monkey]

I hear you. I've got a product I'd like to sell, I could think up a dozen decent domain names for the site, and every one of them is taken, and parked. Not being used, just sitting there. I contacted the owner of my favorite, and he wanted $20,000 to sell the domain. I offered $300. I just don't think the system is supposed to work like that. There needs to be some kind of regulation that you have to register a domain with the intent of doing something with it, and not merely speculating on price. The domain name system should not be the New York Stock Exchange.

Re:Evil cybersquatters

[meta-monkey]

The problem is that their activities are contrary to the intended use of the DNS system. The idea is you register a domain name so people can easily find your home page/product/service/university/chess club/whatever. Instead, you have squatters and domain speculators who have bought up, for $10 each, every possible name they can think of that might, some day, be worth something, and they're holding it for ransom.

Imagine you come up with the name for a business you'd like to start or a product you'd like to sell. It's the perfect name! So clever and unique! And you go to register the domain..and find it's taken. And so are the 18 variations of it you can think of that might work, too. And they're not being used, at all. It's not like somebody else just "got to it first" and is using it to sell their product. No, they're just hoping to extort some money out of someone who actually wants to do something with it. And they want an obscene amount of money. Like $20,000 for a return on their $10 investment. Can you understand how that experience might make you want to break their legs?

These people aren't doing anything useful, they're not providing any service, they're just dicks.