ok, as an example, lets say i want to make an affiate website using the popular online shoe retailer zappos.com . Say i created a website to get people to buy Puma shoes off of zappos. If i registered the domain retro-puma-shoes.com (high keyword density), would this be a problem with trademark an all? Because it uses the trademarked name Puma in the domain. The site would just have the title "retro puma shoes", and in a blog format their would be articles about each shoe, with a affiate link at the bottom. would Puma have the right to make me shut down such a site, and hand over the domain? or would they not be able to / not care (the money is going to them because i am selling their products through zappos...). for the somewhat similar site i am making, i want to use a brand name in the domain, so that is the main issue.
Short answer is yes it would be a trademark violation. They could take it from you if they wanted. I think you would be better off using a domain like retro-shoes.com, with a subdomain, like puma.retro-shoes.com. That way, if they have a problem, you can simply remove that subdomain and keep your site operating. This is one of those tricky questions because they could really come after you, but it is unlikely. You should do some research and see if there are other sites around that are doing what you want to do and have they been around for a while. If so, it would give you reason to think yours might be okay too. There is no guarantee and by using a name like puma to sell shoes, it is clear you would be using their trademark and they could stop it. Some companies, even though you are driving them sales, do want or allow people using their marks.
I don't think Puma would care much about it. There are alot of sites running out there like Google's knol project that are way close to the actual domain name. But there is no one stopping them. The company own's a specific domain and have its trademark. They don't care about our sites. But it is not necessary that they'll come after you, or they should have purchased the domain themselves.
They have no obligation to buy the domain themselves. I have dealt with this situation where the user of the trademarked domain was sued in US Federal Court and just to give back the name and walk away cost them a lot of money.
If a company with money gives you the chance to give it back, do it. In the case I helped someone with, they never got notice. They were served (via email) with a Federal Court summons for a TRO to hold the name at the registrar. He would have willingly given up the name. But by that time, the other side has spent substantial money on attorney's fees. Just to get him free to walk away cost him over $1,000 - and he had free legal help on his side. The case took over 12 months to resolve. People need to pick their battles very carefully. If you are not making money on an infringing domain and you have the opportunity to walk away, do it. I have pushed the envelope myself, and posted the C & D, I received from a billion dollar pharmaceutical company on DP. I was able to just walk away from the domain and I considered it a victory. What is troublesome to me is that so many people on this forum offer horrible legal advice that could cost somebody lots of money when they have an option of getting out and taking a small loss on a reg fee. Here was my C & D experience: http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=202326 I see the images are down. If I get the time, I may repost them to help others. But, the short story is a had a domain with the word viagra in it. I think I could have found non-infringing uses for the name, but it simply is not worth it in most cases.
In this case puma would have to prove that you use the domain in a way that could hurt their brand, that is hard when you are trying to sell their products.. on the other hand they can use UDRP and try to grab the domain, but that is highly unlikely since it does nothing bad to them. Post a link to them so they actually get some plus of it instead.. I would not worry about this at all.
Except if their affliiate agreement or so says not to register any domain name bearing their brand, which is why I told the OP to check as it can answer his or her question.
Actually, since the affiliate is Zappos, they have no right to speak on behalf of every manufacturer of shoes they sell. If one wants permission to use the name PUMA, one would have to get that from Puma, not Zappos.