A Porn gateway site has bought a domain name very similar to that of our company’s Website URL, and we are starting to get complaints from those users who don’t have the manual dexterity to type the correct URL.
My question is: what are the legal avenues open to us?
Details: They want to sell us the domain name for a minimum of $550, which we are not prepared to pay. We are based in the UK (URL is of the .org.uk type), and the domain (the .org equivalent) is registered with a Armenian address (according to WHOIS).
You want to know what legal avenues you have because people don’t have the manual dexterity to type a URL properly?
I don’t know about that, Im not a lawyer but you should see what they did with URLs for the WhiteHouse. One would think the US gov would have done something about that if there was any recourse, right?
If your domain name is trademarked and you can demonstrate that your customers are repeatedly misled by the other domain, then that “confusion in mind of the consumer” might constitute trademark infringement. You could file a civil suit and/or a complaint with ICANN. ICANN might be your best route because the fact that the porn site is offering to sell you the domain can be used as evidence of “bad faith” in their original registration. There is a great deal of precedent that ICANN’s resolution (usually handled by WIPO) will favor trademark holders against people who try to extort money for similar domains. You should find a good intellectual property attorney who has experience in online issues.
handy’s example of the whitehouse domains is not pertinent in this case because “whitehouse” is not trademarked and the US Government has no legal protection on that mark or domain.
And what guaruntee do we have that they won’t just pocket the money and ask for more?
No - I don’t think paying up is an option, but since the owners are based in Armenia, I am not sure what our legal options are either - the ICANN route is one we’re looking at.
Use an escrow company. Check out greatdomains.com, they have an escrow service for transferring domain names. Not advocating you agree to pay them, that is your decision, but it should not be a real problem once you make that decision.