Hi,

I started building small Adsense niche sites a few months ago. Today, I got sent a letter from a legal company ordering to take one of my niche sites down because it "violates their client's trademark".

The niche site just provides reviews of their products, with Adsense ads on, but DOES have their company name in the domain name.

What do I do? Do I take the site down or just leave it up?

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Somebody else had this problem a few days ago and recieved an email from their hosting company to remove it.
If I was you I would just remove this site and move on.

owning trademarked domains is serious business. its not worth it. know someone going through that now. its expensive. not worth it. I promise.

Exactly, its significantly less hassle for them to warn you off once than to take legal action. You probably got away with it, move on and dont look back.

Next time though, try and avoid registering domain names that contain trademarks in the field you're promoting. It's could wind up being costly.

UPS did that to me a few months ago... I took down the site.

Owning a domain name that is trademarked is pure genius. What the hell are you talking about?

It's not serious business at all. Just because someone trademarks a name doesn't mean that I can't buy a domain name that has their trademark in it.

If Nike.com went up for sale and I bought it that isn't illegal at all, in fact I would make bank selling it back to them.

Yes it's expensive, for the company that needs to buy the name back from you. Don't give in to them so fast, a letter is nothing, if the only thing that the site has is a review of their products and their company's name then don't worry about it. For them to do anything serious they need to deliver a letter in person to you with Summons.

I usually turn it into a site bashing the actual company with a link to a competitor's site so that they'll both get into a cat fight. Works everytime!

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Works in what way? Seems like being dick just for the hell of it.

I'll try to be polite but you are completely talking out your ass and could not be fruther from the truth..
Your Nike example is bullshit because they would never sell it or let it go anyway. Good fucking god, the complete premise of that example defies any common sense.

And if you happened to grab a a domain that had the trademark of a company in it you'd lose that as well. You would never make a dime but the good news is that you wouldn't incur any legal expense either because ICANN would simply can your domain.

Yeah I had the exact same problem, got a whole swag of letters from lawyers and angry messages from my hosting company. Unless it is making you big $ take it down.
But also if you are based outside of the USA in somewhere like Cuba say FTW and leave it up!

301 it to a different domain name so you don't lose any links u built.

killzone, using trademarks in your domain can lead to a fine up to 100k. like i said before, not worth it. I have a buddy that is going through this right now. The review process that determines what your punishment costs $1k alone, at your expense. Most of the time, the review just determines that you have to hand over your domain to the trademark owner at no cost. If you get a cease and desist letter, your best bet is to take down the site and offer your domain to the trademark owner immediately and move on. Obviously, your best bet is to never buy them in the first place.

I can't imagine how anyone can think they'd get away with holding a trademarked domain name hostage without penalty. With that said, I don't know how a trademarked name can be included within a domain name that also includes "sucks" and being totally about the trademarked company named as follows:
And there are many just like the one above and the only way I could imagine the trademarked company don't do anything about it is maybe "freedom of speech" loophole, I don't know.

OW

You've already received your answer here...or at least I hope you did, but if I were you, I would take it down. It's not worth your hosting account being banned as well as potentially being fined.

I'd check cyber squatting laws regarding this.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cybersquatting

You cant just buy a domain which has the companies trademark in it and expect to sell it to them for big bucks they will take you to the cleaners especially if they are a large corporation who can afford to wipe you out.

LOL you beat me to it!

NOT worth it!! I have been to the same situation.....take it down and move on!

You guys have frighten me.. last month I did the same mistake and realized it immediately after. Asked for a suggestion here but got no reply...

So started building the content... the domain is "bbcdigital" and I am just confused if bbc is going to take any action though I am not going to put anything related to their service or product.

Should I drop my plan and look up for another domain... I bought this at a premium price from snapnames

maybe this is why my adsense was get banned, or this march GA was doing some banned massal for their publisher?

Can somebody explain to me why ebaysucks.com and paypalsucks.com are still there after so many years?

I'm pretty sure Paypal Ebay Corp would be one of the companies that has the resources to "wipe people out" to "the cleaners".

So weird..

Thats because those domains will not create a confusion with the actual trademark holders and falls under fair use doctrine. companyiscams.com is a different matter though as you have to have proof before accusing somone of scam.

Remember that trademark owner HAVE to defend their trademark or they'll loose it.

As a comparison, some people got away with murder but that doesnt mean you will too

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