Just wanted to ask a quick question here - I've seen tons of reviews of services that use trademarks, either in the review itself or in the domain name (ie trademark.example.com, example.com/trademark, or even trademark-reviewname.com, or other similar names). First of all - what are the legal issues (if any) of using someones trademark if you are reviewing the services they offer? Can you use it in both the domain name / the actual print review? In example, say I wanted to review yahoo. I go and register yahoo-review.com, and write a review about all of the services that yahoo offers. I'm sure I would mention tons of their trademarks (their company name and I'm sure many of their service names have been trademarked). Is this legal? Thanks for any advice you can offer.
You can certainly review trademarks, but registering a domain using a trademarked term is another story. It has nothing to do with whether or not you say something good about the company - it depends on if you are infringing upon their trademark. There have been cases where usuage of "trademark-sucks.com" have been allowed - but they aren't going to confuse something into thinking they are owned by the trademark holder. There are a number of factors, but it really comes down to intent. Is the name likely to imply or confuse someone into thinking it might be associated with the actual trademark? A disclaimer after someone gets to site isn't enough if the domain name itself gets them to the site. Is it a commerical site, which means it will generate some revenue i.e. adsense, membership fee, even "donations for bandwidth" make a site commerical. You can't ride the goodwill of another company's established name to make a profit. Generally speaking, a trademark holder like "yahoo" has exclusive rights to use of their trademark in a domain name. You don't want to spend a lot time on a site only to get a C&D letter, or worse, a lawsuit because you infringed upon someones trademark. Either pay an intellectual property rights attorney for an opinion or write to the trademark holder and explain exactly what you intend to do and the domain name you are going to use. It most cases, it's not something you have the right to do, but some companies are not aggressive (many gaming companies look the other way) and others like "myspace" "microsoft" and "google" are very aggressive about going after people. There are thousands of examples of domains that are infringing, but that doesn't make it legal.
So basically - the portion that makes this illegal - is confusing a potential customer into thinking that I am the company who's trademark I am using? A second question for you - if I go to said company and got permission to use the trademark, then later on they decided they didn't like this idea anymore, the best they could do (after giving me permission in the first place) is tell me to stop, correct? They couldn't sue after granting permission...right?
A trademark or servicemark means that an individual or company has the rights to use a name for a particular classification. Registering a name like googlesuck.com (just an example, google actually owns this domain) is usually considered free-speech and there are cases of trademark infringement suits that have been dismissed because the domain name was so clearly "anti-"trademark" company" that if could not possibly be construed as connected to the company. If you use a name of trademark company to do reviews about it, it would open the door to a suit that you are using the name to ride their goodwill. Even if you could successfully argue it wasn't infringement, it would take well over a hundred thousand dollars in legal fees - and said legal fees would not be awarded to you. These big trademarks have deep pockets and very few people are going to spend that amount of money for a domain name that probably isn't worth a fraction of that. If you can get permission from a company, you would get it in writing so there would no problems down the road. The company would actually be granting you a "license" to use the name. Basically, you are agreeing they own the rights to the name, but they are granting you permission to use it. That protects you and protects them from not acting against someone who is infringing upon their name. It's similar to a franchise - you can own a "McDonald's" and use the name, but you agree that you don't own the name. I guess you would need to look at it from their perspective - What's in it for them? Is it going to help them in any way? Explaining how giving you permission is going to benefit them would give you the best chance of getting approval. I know someone who had registered a domain name that belonged to a huge retailer- it wasn't the name of their store, but a service they had trademarked. It took several phones calls to get a hold of the right person, but they actually wound up saying they were abandoning the usage of the service - and that he could use the name. With the letter from their attorney's, he was able to sell the .com name for a pretty hefty price. It was a good domain name, but no one had bothered to register it because they probably knew they couldn't use it.