sergei By posting that you are not going to sell them for less than 50K, you are providing their lawyers an information (if they read this forum). ie., "Trademarked domain bought with an intention to Sell it", it May cause you to fight a wipo case for trademark infringement. Beware, Better remove those words
Thank you guys! Sarathy, I was just joking I'm not gonna sell it. I will let this domain die, I guess... Well, I was just waiting for their reply. But probably they don't wanna talk to me=) I'm saving money now for buying another website about eBay and paypal... And After that I will just push my domain to eBay, it has PR 5 and nice statistic. And that's why I stopped working on website right now. I'm waiting!
sergei, if they dont bother responding to you then when let it die? You acted in good faith when you emailed them and asked for permission, and then never told you it was a problem. They may send threatening emails to a lot of people and not follow through if they stand up for themselves. At least wait for a response from them to see if they are serious. I think you have a valid reason to ask for compensation on the time you have spent working on the site. That is if they really want you to drop it.
That doesn't work--you have no legal right to the domain in the first place. They don't have to "offer" you anything. Your sole benefit is avoiding a lawsuite for damages.
Id leave it alone if I were you, just register something new - maybe with 'pp' in rather than the full blown paypal
I had similar problem with Yahoo wanting to take over one of my websites. We had a very solid user base but our strategy was to get the press and users on our side. We even acquired a attorney pro bono to represent us. In the end Yahoo just backed and and the domain is still running. Maybe you can get some ideas from some our experience. (You have to copy and paste the link) http://web.archive.org/web/19990420122109/http://www.yahooka.com/yahoo.htm#Ya-Hooka's%20current%20view%20on%20the%20situation
"CNN reports that a man's website, http://www.bosleymedical.com, criticizing the Bosely Medical Institute does not infringe the institute's copyright on its name. The man's attorney is quoted as saying that the court's decision 'is an important victory for free speech on the Internet. It makes clear that consumers can use a trade name for a company they want to criticize.' And that exactly what your site will do. By discussing paypal you and your members are effectively criticizing them. Don't be afraid of the big companies. They throw their clout around. You can find many resoures for help in such cases.
Thanks everybody!!!! I'v just bought another website onlineauctioncommunity.net. And I'm gonna make one website from onlineauctioncommunity and paypaltalks. Just funny thing, that they don't even answer my e-mail and fax. Well, one guy said that my e-mail was not professional, but I think ignore my faxes and e-mails is not professional. PayPaltalks.com has PR 5 actually=-) And If they will not answer next couple weeks, I'm gonna sell it on ebay!-) I will get you a link here! And Actually I think that It was just a robot, or one of competitors. But I don't know! We will see! Thanks again for your advices!!!!
Actually that's not true, at least in US trademark law. If someone with the last name McDonald were to open a restaurant with the example name you gave, McDonalds couldn't do anything about it ... they'd have no legal way of winning the battle in court. Why? Because the other restaurant would be a privately-owned non-competing one. Unless they were a fast food chain selling the same types of food, they're justified in using the name. However, since your trademark in the US can only be claimed if you actively try to protect it, companies send cease and desist letters like the one given here, whether they can win or not. The government has the right to cancel a trademark if a name's usage becomes so common that it becomes almost a general noun itself (like when copies were suddenly being called xeroxes, it was a big trademark issue), so companies need to have a paper trail proving they've been trying to defend their trademark right. That's all this really amounts to. In this poster's case, they're not competing with PayPal's services, so there's not a thing Ebay can do. They would have to prove in court that this person's site was directly hurting them by competing with them, or misleading their customers away from them. This is the same reason why you can register names like Paypalsucks.com, Microsoftsucks.com, etc. and you won't lose a trademark dispute. It's a non-competition issue. Just ignore it. If they write again, just send them a certified letter stating that based on US trademark law (assuming you're in the US), and the fact that you're in no way competing with their site, you won't be removing the domain name. Jenn
hmmm...Jenn before your post I was going to let this domain name die...nut now. I don't know what to do. Well, thank you! I have to think about it.