As some of you may know shareasale.com is a major affiliate/merchant portal, often mentioned in forums. BUT one day i somehow stumbled across shareasale.net and registered it on the spot !! I just wondered where i stand legally ?? Surely its much cheaper to buy the domain ?? (rather than pursue expensive legal action) WHAT'S YOUR OPINION ??
On the edge. First, apparently you registered the domain name because you heard of some big business. Second, the domain's content shows ads of arguably competing services or products of the business' trademark. While it's practically cheaper to buy the domain name (which I suppose is why you registered it in the first place) from you, they might instead spend money to file a dispute. Some can buy, others would fight to make a point, while few might ignore and leave them with a possibly unnecessary expense. Of course, if you made money off that, then they might come after you. Up to you what to do if that happens.
You are by definition a domain squatter, and you have no idea how much you have embarrassed yourself by making this post.
No, the OP has not embarrassed himself, he posted this thread to ask a perfectly fine question. IMO I don't think shareasale will be too bothered unless you start 'pretending' to be them or start making serious money on the domain. It's alright to sell it though.
As pointed out, you are a domain squatter. This thread serves as proof of your intent to use the name in bad faith. Not too smart to include the actual domains and your desire to be paid off instead of forcing them to sue you. You have basically laid out their entire case in your OP.
Good point Maybe that was my convoluted intention. I'm very cheap to speak too, much less than a lawyer.
There are probably non-infringing uses of the domain, but you have pretty much locked in your intent with this thread. I would move on to other projects and leave this one to die.
ShareASale is trademarked. With your post above you have demonstrated the 3 elements that the plaintiff must show in order to win a UDRP dispute. http://www.icann.org/en/udrp/udrp-policy-24oct99.htm
Its too bad this type of thing is actually a problem. IMHO, you should be able to build a clone of the site and do you best with it and they couldnt do much about it. Unless you are slandering them with false acusations or something else scamming users, why should it be a problem. Too many lawyers in the world.
Imagine you have built a very successful commercial brand, then you see few using your trademark for their own purposes without benefitting you. Will you yourself appreciate that? Or worse case scenario: someone uses your trademark to sell some competing product or service. A user buys one, gets scammed, remembers that name of the product, then pursues the actual trademark holder for something they do not have anything to do with. Some don't mind, while others do. Like I said, it depends who you deal with.
Listen to yourself. You are calling them stupid for not registering the .net and saying that buying it from you will be cheaper than them pursing legal action. And that's the thing with you idiots. You do this stuff again and again and again instead of building something legit that will ultimately make you more money.
My 2 cents is that you have registered the domain on the basis that you have heard of the main site, something that you have openly said here, on a forum that is clearly ranked within google so should you be contacted about the domain, accept the first offer they give you or get shut asap.
Heh, good luck trying to make money off that. If no one bites, coupled with not making money off that domain name somehow, then you practically got a loss. Then again, like I said, ShareASale might take action against you even if you did.
As long as you're not confusing users of sharesale.com, then you're fine. That means you would have a provide a different type of service.