Hang on a tick, you have done nothing wrong here and you should not place yourself in teh firing line. I have had 18 years experience in this so I do know what I am talking about. But you are free not to follow any advice I have given if you consider that international law does not apply in the US. You still need to maintain protection against damages for defimation without admitting liability, I had a similar instance with starwars.co.nz with Lucas playing heavy, they lost and we did not even need to get to court your situation is no different. If someone else has a better suggestion thats fine but find out who I am before stating I dont know what I am talking about. I think its a loss to the client to just hand over domain for no reason, thats bully boy tactics.
Thats fine let them take action they do not have a legal basis for argument, the names do not constitute a breach of Internic requirements at best all they do is run to a possible defimation case tio which the problem has been corrected. TM is the only issue of protection to the name facebook as it does not have a commoin law presidence, but the domain cannot be considered a direct violation based on teh changes to the name, if the contecnt of the site is the same then issues can arise. Based on the post of the message the concluded question was how to protect the domain names, I understand if there are differences in US policy but internic does make the domain specifications very clear and to just hand the domains over is daft. I do suggest a bit more homework on domains before you spend money on registration though may help solve you having this issue again.
I do not see how you are going to run into an issue for this letter, you have complied with the basis of thier argument, wait and see theer response before taking any additional action. As said I have had similar issues and not had to hand over domains, I do understand the company is trying to prootect ther IP but you have not done anything wrong as yet unless you have not stated the whole facts.
No, they haven't sent anything to the owner yet, because they had to get his cntact info first. Now that they have it, they will contact him (assuming the info he listed with Domains by Proxy is correct). They didn't go through the effort of getting his contact details just to do nothing with them. This is not some small mom and pop group being dealt with here. Disputes for .info domains are handled either through court (since both parties here seem to be in the US, US law would prevail and not InterNIC rules) or UDRP (just like .com and .org). It wouldn't be InterNIC anyway, as they gave up that control to ICANN in 1998. The UDRP process does not only look at exact matches of trademarks in order to find them infringing. They consider typos, trademark/dictionary word combos, confusingly similar terms, and more. The UDRP does not give away domains just because the domain contains a trademark. However, you have to be in the process of (or already) offering an unrelated service through the disputed domain, already have been recognized by that name before registering the domain, or be using the domain for legitimate non-commercial use (UDRP considers parking a domain with ads to be neither legitimate nor non-commercial). These domains with their current usage would not stand up to a UDRP decision and would be awarded to facebook.com if facebook.com took that route. These are also well established guidelines in US court for domain disputes. For more info about this: http://www.icann.org/udrp/udrp-policy-24oct99.htm Actually, he hasn't complied with their C&D yet because he hasn't gotten it. All the OP has received is notice from his registrar that his contact info has been requested on the basis of trademark infringement. The registrar he used does private registrations so in order for facebook.com to be able to contact him, they had to go through Domains by Proxy to get his contact info. He will be getting a letter soon (though it may not be a C&D, it may just be a notice of a UDRP filing).
Agreed. I think he should wait and not panic until more information comes to hand. This looks like a standrad fishing excersise to get the information, once thats done the parties can start to work out a solution. The information is too fague to start panicing over unless he has done more than he has said?
Agreed. And speaking of UDRP, this just came in: http://www.wipo.int/amc/en/domains/decisions/html/2007/d2007-1193.html
Personally, I don't think he needs to wait. Nor do I think he needs to panic. Given facebook.com's recent history, they will want the sites. Given the information provided, he will lose the domains in a dispute. He can not try to sell them for profit, but if he contacts them before they file a UDRP he can recover the cost of obtaining the domain (this does not include hosting fees, advertising costs, or that type of thing - not that there were any since it is a parked site). If he waits until the decision then he will probably get nothing. If I were him, I would take care of it now and not waste time in the future. Of course, I wouldn't have registered them in the first place.
When did you register these domain names? Was it after Facebook received a trademark? If you did this after Facebook received a trademark then it is all but certain that you would be found to be engaging in bad faith and likely quite easy for Facebook to wrestle the names away from you. I do not expect that you will get sued. It is far more common for trademark owners to use ICANN approved domain name dispute resolution proceedings (i.e., arbitration). The reason this is far more common is because the cost is much cheaper than filing a lawsuit. If you did send that letter that was suggested early in this chain then I would probably recommend that you just sit back at this point and wait to see if you hear anything else. If you have not sent that letter yet you might want to respond by asking them what they propose. If they propose you transfer the names to them you want to be careful. If you offer to sell the names that will likely be used to demonstrate bad faith on your part. If they try and get you to give them a price or otherwise get you to negotiate a transfer what you need to do is get them to agree that any communications relating to transfer are confidential settlement negotiations and cannot be used by either party in any litigation or arbitration proceeding. Good luck. -Gene
They can claim infringement, dilution and several other theories. Whether they can PROVE them is another story, but not likely one you wish to spend the money to fight. @fathom, there are several services which will certify delivery of an email, to a legal certainty. And the recipient won't know his email was tracked.
...and it will check that it arrived, to an actively used account, and was read, by the correct person, e.g. 3-year-old billy wasn't the wrong recipient, it didn't get filtered as junk, and didn't get filtered to a rarely use folder, wasn't accidently deleted... among other things? A carrier pigeon service could certify delivery of whatever to a local nest on location... but it doesn't prove any message was received without the person/entity actually signing for it. My point: if a firm plans to sue as a last effort all previous efforts will likely be used to support their claim (and the alleged offender dis-interest in resolving) but if you say "we did this" and the other say "I didn't get it"... you've opened the door for "the benefit of a doubt"... and that's all that is needed. I understand that it is just a game of poker (analogy)... anyone can bluff and win, but anyone willing to go for broke... "doesn't bluff"... they bean count on what it is worth and don't risk losing on circumstances.
Many jurisdictions have approved certain methods of sending email which are considered delivered under the law. See http://rpost.com/ as an example. In Los Angeles, an email sent this way can be legally proved to have been delivered and its contents proven.
Ya ok I checked out the website and noticed under their Limited Liability Disclaimer: Not really sure what that means but it doesn't sound overly promising... they obviously don't wish to be caught in a dispute over "I sent it; I didn't receive it," and some judge determining "it can't be proven"... and if that's their "informed position" on their own services... my uninformed position on their services isn't going to question their "insider validity". I did try to find case law... (one way or the other) but haven't yet (in California or elsewhere) ... and it wouldn't be overly useful to use Rpost's press releases since they admit such statements are only meant to sell services. Be that as it may, I'm not convinced.