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Previous: Women-Owned Businesses on the Rise Have you ever misspelled a URL or misremembered the exact name of a product and gotten to a site that had nothing on it but pay-per-click ads? Or worse, had porn or some other unwanted content on it? It's infuriating, isn't it? (It's even more infuriating for trademark and domain name owners to have to register every misspelling of they can think of for their domain name you to keep cybersquatters from registering one of the misspellings!) Unfortunately, there are any number of opportunists who register domain names and set up websites on domains that are misspellings of popular domain names or that are confusingly similar variations of well-known brand names. Their goal: To make money from all those trademark misspellings. Cybersquatting has been happening pretty much since the web was created. But now, at least some cybersquatters may get their comeupance. Microsoft has decided to go after cybersquatters who use Microsoft trademarks (or misspellings of them) as part of a domain name. Cybersquatting was made illegal by the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act (ACPA), which was signed into law in 1999. The law imposes a civil liability fine of up to $100,000 in statutory damages for anyone who "registers, traffics in or uses a domain name that is identical to, confusingly similar or dilutive of" an existing trademark."
Comments Yesterday, When I Googled the word “Ebony” because I was looking for the Ebony Magazine site, I was shocked to find that porn sites were listed on the same page with the exact spelling. When I was a public school teacher, I discoverd a porn site directly linked to a site that students would have used routinely. I reported the issue to school authorities. I’m delighted that Microsoft is taking a legal stand against such practices. Hopefully others will follow suit. Posted by: Ollie Mears on September 7, 2006 at 10:54 AM I’m glad to see someone doing this. Once one company does it, others will tend to follow. It will help us small business owners keep our edge by scaring off the jerks. Thank you Microsoft! Posted by: Kristin Wilson on September 7, 2006 at 6:31 PM Thank you big government for protecting all those poor people who can’t spell. Sounds to me like cybersquatting is a great way to make money. As long as you don’t pose as Microsoft, whats the harm? Posted by: Tom Jeffersons on September 15, 2006 at 5:16 PM All I can say is “good luck”. They’re everywhere. If you don’t purchase every conceivable spelling of your domain, someone will buy it. Posted by: Traume on May 13, 2007 at 11:04 PM |
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Microsoft Sues Cybersquatters
Oh yeah. I sure hope somebody does something about cybersquatters, they’re a real pain. All the mental gymastics one has to go through just to figure a way out of the mess that they cause.
Thank you for illuminating the topic that I’m most certain affects a lot more people than we both imagine. You always seem to be on top of all the issues that affect small business.
Keep up the great work that you do.
Posted by: ANTHONY on September 7, 2006 at 10:43 AM