A federal court in the Northern District of California has upheld a December 2008 judgment which awarded Verizon $33.15 million in a cybersquatting case against OnlineNIC, an Internet domain registration company.
The case is based on OnlineNIC’s attempts to take advantage of Verizon and its customers by using names that are easily confused with legitimate Verizon names.
Cybersquatting Goes Social
Cybersquatting is not a new problem on the web. People have been squatting on domains for years. The Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act defines cybersquatting as registering, trafficking in, or using a domain name with bad faith intent to profit from the goodwill of a trademark belonging to someone else. The cybersquatter then offers to sell the domain to the person or company who owns a trademark contained within the name at an inflated price. And it’s on the rise…
Cybersquatting Increasing
Complaints of "cybersquatting" where a person sets up a site using a trademarked name and profits by selling the name to the owner reached a record level last year according to the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO).