http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2006/08/22/ap2966123.html?partner=alerts It is an interesting read and the question is will other Corporations follow suit and be victorious? Or will the law effectively condone cybersquatting and open up the internet to even more pointless spam? I noticed Google ads appearing on one of the sites - could google be implicated by MSN as taking part in anti-competitive practices and 'earning money through its competitors trademarks' and therefore be required to pay MSN... One site had been taken down when I checked. The other one was landing pages I regularly see everytime I do a google search. The further issue is domain name registrars - could they also then be implicated and fined for profiting from trademarked domain names...
Interesting read indeed. Whilst they aren't the only ones, it seems that Google and Adsense is the cause of a lot of crap on the internet. Daily, I am finding websites, with very little or stolen content, with Adsense ads slapped in the middle. Google wants to remove spam from the SERP's but in the other hand it's causing the majority of the spam by not monitoring websites using Adsense - I know this would be a administrative nightmare, they need to do something before the net is over crowded with non useful websites.
I did make a post about Google to clean up adsense (didnt link to it since I started it and not sure if I would be able to link to my own topic due to revenue sharing on forum lol). Although Google gain from MFA websites, they could gain a lot more by attracting more competitive advertisers if they cleaned the adsense network up. Also, Microsoft did pursue domain squatters in 1998/1999 when the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act was passed by President Clinton, it wasn't applied to Domain Registrars. I think Microsoft are looking to achieve this... so it would make the domain registrars legally liable for allowing registrations of trademarked terms and failing to monitor the registrations with respect to trademarks.
Many domains are under scanner those who are using "windows" "vista" and other misspelled and similar domain name will be facing this.
That is only if Microsoft can prove that they were just trying to get traffic from there domain. If they have a legit website, that has nothing to do with myspace they cant get in trouble at all, because its generic, and it is not trademarked
I find there is really nothing wrong if you register a site with similar names to popular sites as long as they dont do it for some dubious purpose
Yes. That's the whole idea behind "Trademarks". Product names/Logos/Packaging etc used in a manner to create confusion in minds of a customer by making two products similar is a trademark violation even though the actual names may be different. The same logic should apply to domains. However it is a subjective matter and different lawsuits may lead to different judgements. From the link that I provided earlier:
I posted about it a few days back on here ... Yeah looks like a few others companies may pick up on it this time though - unlike in 1998/1999 when Microsoft sued a cuple of domains then. The internet has advanced a lot since that time and many companies are now seeing the value in their names - so more are likely to follow suit.
Shouldn't be hard to do in most cases, where the domain names have obviously been registered "in bad faith".
If they come after you the best thing to do would be to just hand over the domains and hope they don't sue you.
what if you own something like microsift and have been branding it for 10+ years without offering something related to microsoft?
MySpace is trademarked (Federally Registered) - but the US has common law trademarks which mean you don't need to file to have rights to a name. You must be the first to use, continue to use, for the particular classification/sector. Usage if very important in trademarks, but you can't register a name like AppleComputers and sell t-shirts because the name itself would be enough to infringe on the APPLE trademark.