Business/Domain Name usurped - What to do?

[Domain52]

Noting recent reader activity here, and for the benefit of future readers, it should be noted the previous post is factually incorrect.


This is called cyber-squatting; and, ICANN rules are designed to prevent it.

Whether or not the DN in question is being used is of no material relevance to the issue of whether or not the Registrant has a legal claim to the name. If not, his Registration can be voided by ICANN; and, he will not be entitled to compensation from a rightful claimant.

In essence, a cyber-squatter is gambling on being able to buy something that another will want, and be willing and able to pay for. If he bets on something that the other has a legal claim to, and he does not, he loses his bet.

Thank you for posting this updated information!

On this note i have a situation for anyone who can offer some advice.

We recently let a domain name lapse for our business (.info address - and we own all the other domains). Well someone grabbed it up who really knows what they're doing w/ all the SEO stuff (i would consider them an 'ace' actually) because now if someone were to google my business name without the .com/org/net then this person's website (our business name and primary domain name) is the FIRST ONE to come up on Google.

They created a website for the same industry that we are in and made it a blog with data entries being indexed for a couple years back - so it looks like its been around for years and appears like its a well managed website.

The only thing they don't do is give any contact information or names etc but they do have a contact page for someone to send them an email or contact them that way (again no email addresses or names are used other then a generic name for the poster on the blog entries)

But they explicitly use our domain/business name on the website and if any of our customers were to go on there it would 100% appear like it was us. There would be no reason to think that its not (same name/same industry)

Is there any recourse for us in this situation?

The amazing thing is the domain just expired less then a mth ago - don't know how someone can outrank us that fast but we have ONLY used our domain as a landing page for our clients and have not as of yet done any SEO for the website.

At the same time and not related to this particular situation (but along the same line)

We found someone else posting our website on an online business listing page as their own website. So they listed themselves/business then gave our website as their own w/ their phone number as the point of contact (and a church organization/bogus email contact) and they actually created several different business names using our website and their same phone number (We do a lot of consulting over the phone). Being that we are also members of the Better Business Bureau (BBB) and have a solid reputation AND do a lot of advertising - its easy to see why someone might attempt to do this. To what degree they might be trying to (or have thus far) capitalize on this listing we don't know. I already contacted the website to take it down but have not heard from them so far. We figured contacting this person would be one of the last things we do after we learn all our rights and try to get the ad taken down.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated - it was our own oversight to let that domain lapse and we knew to buy up all the related domains when we set up our website.

thanks.

Regards

[clumberman]

Thank you for posting this updated information!

On this note i have a situation for anyone who can offer some advice.

We recently let a domain name lapse for our business (.info address - and we own all the other domains). Well someone grabbed it up who really knows what they're doing w/ all the SEO stuff (i would consider them an 'ace' actually) because now if someone were to google my business name without the .com/org/net then this person's website (our business name and primary domain name) is the FIRST ONE to come up on Google.

They created a website for the same industry that we are in and made it a blog with data entries being indexed for a couple years back - so it looks like its been around for years and appears like its a well managed website.

The only thing they don't do is give any contact information or names etc but they do have a contact page for someone to send them an email or contact them that way (again no email addresses or names are used other then a generic name for the poster on the blog entries)

But they explicitly use our domain/business name on the website and if any of our customers were to go on there it would 100% appear like it was us. There would be no reason to think that its not (same name/same industry)

Is there any recourse for us in this situation?

The amazing thing is the domain just expired less then a mth ago - don't know how someone can outrank us that fast but we have ONLY used our domain as a landing page for our clients and have not as of yet done any SEO for the website.

At the same time and not related to this particular situation (but along the same line)

We found someone else posting our website on an online business listing page as their own website. So they listed themselves/business then gave our website as their own w/ their phone number as the point of contact (and a church organization/bogus email contact) and they actually created several different business names using our website and their same phone number (We do a lot of consulting over the phone). Being that we are also members of the Better Business Bureau (BBB) and have a solid reputation AND do a lot of advertising - its easy to see why someone might attempt to do this. To what degree they might be trying to (or have thus far) capitalize on this listing we don't know. I already contacted the website to take it down but have not heard from them so far. We figured contacting this person would be one of the last things we do after we learn all our rights and try to get the ad taken down.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated - it was our own oversight to let that domain lapse and we knew to buy up all the related domains when we set up our website.

thanks.

Regards

If they're using your content, or trading on your name, you many need to get lawyers involved. Don't think there's much you can do about the domain name, other than to make them an offer to buy it. AFAIK, they can legally own and use the domain, but not your =company= name or legal web site content. Check with a copyright attorney to be sure, though; one specializing in web content.

[claybutler]

I think the quote above answers your question. Use ICANN to get your domain. You get that back and the story ends. Secondly hire a lawyer for a couple of hundred bucks to write a letter. What they are doing is very illegal. But chances are they are foreign and proprobably out of your reach legally. But with proper legal means you can effective shut them down bit by bit.

[astro]

Hold on, we have no links to web sites or details of what either site actually markets or attempts to market. Therefore are we in a position to offer an informed analysis?

I feel for anyone who has their name pinched then misused or indeed abused. I suspect this case as described is too sophisticated for simple cybersquatting.

That all said, there was a few years back a Chinese registrar used by Telligent who was successfully sued for millions and millions of dollars, 37 million if my memory is correct, but memory is vague with time now. I remember Yahoo was one of the parties who sued. The problem was the chinese registrar used an American accommodation address and not one of the listed directors could be traced. But what they were doing was similar, snapping up domain names very similar to well known names and putting dummy web sites up for chinese suppliers to supply similar and/or fake goods. Meantime (being a registrar they could do this free) they swapped owners names every two days or so thus you could never trace who actually owned the domain as the information on whois was always out of date. Icann put an end to their registrar status in the end, but they still sat on several of my domain names forcing me to pay them to renew until that was stopped as well.

Maybe this scam has returned? If so you stand no chance of any redress financially. Plus no chance of finding the perps. The lesson to learn is never let a domain name go in a competitive business. I keep a dozen or so similar domain names to my own parked just to stop my rivals buying them. It is the cost of doing business over the internet.

I suspect you have just had your learning curve increased dramatically. I feel for you but it is tough out there.

[snakeman]

Domain52, this is an interesting story as I have had a lot of this stuff happen to myself and my established business.
Now, the issues as I see it relate to IP (intellectual property) and traedemark rights as much as SEO.
If you have the business names and/or trademarks, etc you are likely to (in theory) be able to stop the (at this stage alleged) offender. If not then you are in strife. Now you do not need a registered trademark to get what you want, (but it helps a lot).
To make things easier for me and others here to help, can you please let us know the following:
1 - your domain/s (www.what?), 2 - the offending domain/s (so we can see what has happened in terms of registrations, SEO and the like) 3 - Your business name/s and in what forms you have claims over the names (business registrations/companies/trademarks and the first date of registrations of each). 4 - The date of commencement of your bootlegger (as best you can ascertain).
We have had numerous cases of bootleggers of our registered trademarks being usurped by SEO experts with new businesses and like yourself, had newly established companies with websites making out years of business that simply never existed, so what you have written interests me a lot (especially as we are involved in litigation against some such cowboys).
All the best
Snakeman Australia

[NJ]

So, since when is another business at fault when they buy a lapsed domain name? It sucks. It's black hat SEO. It puts them in the "bad guy" category. But, but, but, why would you let a domain name lapse anyway? If you fumble and the other team gets the ball - well, practice your passing game next time.

Putting the Black Hats in their place is the job of the search engine system. All of us hate getting to Black Hat sites from the search engines!

[magic2147]

A few years back client (before they came to us) got an "invoice" from Domains Australia inviting them to register the .com version of their .au domain name. They paid the inflated price asked, the domain was registered through Enom and they started to use the domain. But unknown to them the Enom reseller involved changed the registrant name and some while later when they saw the traffic being generated redelegated it.

Even though the Domains Australia scams are well documented by auDA, neither ICANN nor Enom would take any action to repatriate the domain to our clent even though they were presented with notarised copies of bank cheques, bank statements, evidence of trademark registration etc etc..

Although Enom had been clearly notified of the problem and had received the documentation they subsequently allowed the domain to be transferred out to a Korean registrar.

The ICANN arbitration process is too slow and cumbersome and too expensive for small businesses to use.

[jhannawin]

The domain name is a bit of a red herring, there are very few controls over that, and unless you have a cast iron trademark or registration on your business name you'll have to live with that.

Over here, however, there is a legal case if someone is trying to dupe people into thinking they are you. It is called 'passing off'. In general that falls under consumer protection law which is pretty tight. So over here you might pursue someone like this not through ICANN etc, but through your local trading standards group, and they would ultimately pursue it with whoever they needed to to stop the action. That all takes time though.

Having said that, Astro hits the nail on the head when it comes to detail in this case, and the lesson learned.

[rprzybek]

See some lawyers with expertise in this field. Also look up laws about 'passing off'. We fell foul of this law years ago when we registered a .com domain for an engineering forum. It turned out that there was already a cheap engineering magazine on the market with a similar name and they were able to get us to stop using the domain name. Note: we still owned the domain but we were prevented by law from using it for anything with similarities to the activities of the magazine. i.e. passing off our business as something to do with theirs.

[astro]

See some lawyers with expertise in this field. Also look up laws about 'passing off'. We fell foul of this law years ago when we registered a .com domain for an engineering forum. It turned out that there was already a cheap engineering magazine on the market with a similar name and they were able to get us to stop using the domain name. Note: we still owned the domain but we were prevented by law from using it for anything with similarities to the activities of the magazine. i.e. passing off our business as something to do with theirs.

Every one is so fast to seek out the legal profession, I bet your lawyer drives a better car and lives in a bigger house. It reflects sadly in two ways

1. We all too often seek legal redress and scream thief, when in truth we left the door open. It does not excuse the offence, but goes a long way to explaining it, point the accusing finger and three more point back at you.
2. The only winners are the lawyers. They love people who fight a corner on principles.

As I said before, I feel for you, but learn from this, thus gain a little strength and go improve your existing site to beat the others in the serps.

/astro