Hello everyone, I have received and email from this legal firm which apparently represent "priceline.com" here is the main part of the notice: " Our attention has recently been directed to your registration and use of the domain name pricelinecoupons.com in connection with a PRICELINE COUPONS website that uses the Priceline marks PRICELINE, the PRICELINE.COM logo, and EXPRESS DEALS (collectively, the “Marksâ€), and graphics from the priceline.com website. The pricelinecoupons.com website provides click-through web links for discount travel and car rental services, including links to Priceline’s competitors. Google searches for “priceline coupons†and “priceline coupon†shows the pricelinecoupons.com website in the top results. Your registration and use of the domain name pricelinecoupons.com and your use of PRICELINE COUPONS, Priceline’s Marks, and Priceline’s graphics is clearly designed to misappropriate Priceline’s valuable intellectual property rights and unlawfully trade on the goodwill that Priceline has developed in its Marks. This is illegal under the laws of the pertinent jurisdictions. As a result of your activities, web users who are seeking Priceline’s services may be deliberately and deceptively lured to your discount travel website and to the websites of others, and may be misled into believing that such websites are approved of, sponsored by, or affiliated with Priceline, when they are not." OK I understand the part about priceline graphics, which I can take away. but "priceline coupons" is not a trademark. Also the only outgoing link I have from this website is to priceline.com itself and in all my articles I have talked about how priceline is helping consumers save money and how to use their coupons, so I am not " luring anyone to any other website or their competitors ! plus as you know adsense algorithm has changed so you can be in any website and see different unrelated ads...so i think this is the issue they have to solve with google(adsense) not me ! even so if you search "priceline" or "priceline coupons" itself on google, you will see websites and advertisements from various other companies line flightcenter, hotwire etc. howcome google is not luring their customers into other webites and I am !!? at the end of the letter they want me to close the website asap. what do you thin i should do ! do I have a case or I should get rid of this nifty website? or do you think i can offer them to buy my website/domain? after all its 6k-8k exact match visitors which pricelinecoupons.com ranks first for.
The "parent" trademark/service mark here is Priceline. Priceline is famous "enough" as a website for online travel, and there are enough decisions where adding a letter or word doesn't prevent possible infringement or likelihood of confusion for especially famous trade/service marks. When users type "priceline or priceline coupons", do you expect them to find you...or the actual source of Priceline services? That's what trade/service marks do: identify the source of good or service in commerce. Making things worse is your Adsense showing ads for - of all things - anything related to travel, be it car, air or hotels. That's the part that's (potentially) "leading" users to competitors or so, which Priceline obviously has a problem with. Whether you want to fight Priceline or not is up to you, but they actually do have valid grounds even if you obviously disagree. Selling it to them isn't a good idea, either, and they do not have to "compensate" you in any way unless they agree with your point of view. Personally, I'd delete that domain name rather than necessarily give it to them. Again, it is your call.
I'm afraid that not only is this, on the face of it, a clear TM infringement but your use of the priceline graphics would suggest you set-out with this in mind? Can I ask is your out-going link to priceline.com itself a "clean" link or an affiliate link? As Dave says I don't think you have a leg to stand on, however if you are an affiliate of theirs can I suggest you contact the affiliate manager. It's amazing what can be negotiated when you get your affiliate manager fighting your corner - e.g. throw your hands up and admit you've got it wrong but agree rules that allow you to continue using the site and domain under licence. They address their issues and it also means they continue to have a site marketing their brand and bring extra revenues in. They don't have to do this for you, but you never know....