Keyword Domains...what Might Be the Ramifications

[mikelnix]

I purchased the domain name of a very famous company. I couldn't believe that it was even available! Anyway, I wanted to use it to redirect traffic to my site. Can I be sued because the name might be proprietary?

 

[pcbinsurance]

If you purchased the name of a famous company, be sure you spelled it correctly.

By the way, where is that guy who spelled Boutique....BOTIQUE??

 

[STIBROKER]

I purchased the domain name of a very famous company. I couldn't believe that it was even available! Anyway, I wanted to use it to redirect traffic to my site. Can I be sued because the name might be proprietary?

how do you know it has not been de indexed......

 

[Josh]

I purchased the domain name of a very famous company. I couldn't believe that it was even available! Anyway, I wanted to use it to redirect traffic to my site. Can I be sued because the name might be proprietary?

No, you cannot be sued because it might be proprietary. You can be sued for trademark infringement.

To some degree it depends on what you're doing. I own some domains with some huge brands on them (non-insurance) that could easily go after me, but what I'm using them for is relatively innocuous and of no consequence to them.

I'd be curious to know what it is if you want to PM it to me. The short answer is I wouldn't use it for your main site.

 

[pcbinsurance]

I think he's just talking about forwarding/masking anyone who types in the "famous" domain......to his insurance site.

Not sure how that will work if the "famous" company has nothing to do with insurance. People will feel duped.

 

[b61mack]

The big money maybe to sell the dot com, to them... If they did not dot com it. You own it. When the giants moved to nj, they could not change their name to the NJ Giants, because someone beat them to it. They thought they scored. but the giants, would not buy it from them....

 

[Josh]

The big money maybe to sell the dot com, to them... If they did not dot com it. You own it. When the giants moved to nj, they could not change their name to the NJ Giants, because someone beat them to it. They thought they scored. but the giants, would not buy it from them....

Domains are a bit of a different critter.

Geico will sue affiliates for bidding on variations of their name being misspelled. Companies can file disputes and get the domains returned to them without having to pay for it. Having a domain with someone else's trademarked name in it (big difference between the giants situation and the domain) can be a big problem.

 

[somarco]

I bought humanaone4u.com and got a tersely worded but polite letter from Humana's legal beagles.

No, they were not interested in buying it. They wanted it.

I was using it to redirect to my Humana agent site.

Didn't matter.

So I made it go dark until it expired and bought h14u.com to redirect to my Humana site.

A local agent bought a bunch of BCBS domains.

BCBSGA.com, BCBSTN.com, etc

Wrote a ton of business.

Then Blue decided to challenge.

They said he could keep the domains if he wanted but they would cancel his contract, confiscate his renewals and not pay on new business.

He turned the domains over to them.