Hello, I'm in NY. I was thinking of purchasing a ".net" version of a well known celebrity. The domain name would be his exact name and no variation, nothing else, just his name. I'd like to build a site for this since I think it can rank well in the search engines. Is building and promoting a website with a celebrities name possible red flags?? Thanks.
If you're are doing it with a profit motive (i.e. will be running advertising) - yes, there is a legal risk. Search the legal section - this question has been asked many times.
Don't invest a lot of time or money in the site Don't run ads, just use the site to place links to your other sites and collect emails for the fan newsletter, put a broad privacy policy so you can use the email list for other websites
Many times the .net or .com is available because of prior legal actions. You can use wayback machine or archive url to view a prior site. Also you can check if the site is google banned - if you are buying a name.