cease and desist ?? shit

Congratulations on getting your first C&D letter!

Several years ago I registered a domain that just happened to have the character string "ebay" in it (prize*bay). I received a C&D email from you-know-who, very similar to yours. I had not done any development on it and I decided to not reply to the C&D letter at all. About a month later I attended a domain conference and asked a well-known attorney familiar with the domain industry and trademarks about the domain and the C&D letter. He told me I did the right thing by ignoring the C&D letter. Most big companies have systems in place to automatically identify any and all new domain registrations that contain their trademarked terms and the C&D emails go out without human intervention. It sounds like that is exactly what has happened in your case.

Not to be dissing you in any way, but your domain name is not exactly top-of-the-heap quality. If it was something really special, then you might be facing a lawsuit. In your case, it's best to simply ignore the C&D letter - do not respond in any way. A computer sent you the C&D. This is a tactic intended to scare people into dropping the domain so the company holding the trademark can grab it for themselves if they want it. It is highly unlikely that you will receive any further communications about the domain name.

You should be safe to park the domain, but if you want to develop the site, follow the advice of madinaz and put a disclaimer on every page.

Do not sell the domain name at this time. Should the company decide to fight you, putting it up for sale would definitely show "bad faith" on your part.

Relax - you have just joined the C&D club!

It's spam. I get three or four per week of these at my 9-5. F*ck around with them if you're bored or just ignore them. For extra laughs, bounce them to your legal department and watch the confusion. Most of this stuff seems to be coming from China lately, these guys catch up pretty fast.

C+Ds are what they send out to see if you're willing to roll over quietly which 90% of people are.

You're not in the US?

Tell them to go fuck themselves..

Sincerely
Joe Blow
President
Wordcon Sumer Reports LLC.

You should look up the big (company)sucks.com thing that happened back in the late 90's. I think the first guy to do it bought Ballyssucks.com, if I'm not mistaken a precedent was set, and within months every company had a sucks domain. I recently opened a site (name of spa)sucks.com because my girlfriend was screwed over by her boss. I got threatening phone calls from her, then a letter from her lawyer, I told them to piss off. What I found out was as long as you are not impersonating the company you are ok. Internet law is still dodgy, and judges don't paticurlarly care for cases having to do with it. I have an attorney the specialises in internet law and intellectual copywrite stuff, if you want I can give you his name. Im guessing what he would tell you is if you want to keep it dont worry about it, if you dont care about it, give it to them, but don't try to sell it to them unless they ask to buy it.

ya just give 'em the domain...not worth your time

By the way Consumer Reports is not a generic term. You might consider it generic because of their popularity and excellent branding, but it's not generic at all. Your site could just as easily be called Customer Notes, Customer Reviews, Consumer Reviews, Buyer Reviews, etc...Whether it's plural or not really wouldn't make a difference in a lot of cases.

Last year i was involved in a law suit just like this one except i registered my domain name in 2000 and in 2007 a company claimed they owned the name. Needless to say, i lost only because i did not have 10 gran to fight it. They made a huge stink about it. Enom, those bastards, never sided with me. They ignored every email i sent their legal department. I had no knowledge of the suit until the day it was turned over to them. The won by publicly advertising it, whatever that means. One day i owned my domain the next day i didn't.

I vowed, that if i would ever make enough money i would sue the pants of them and rightfully take back the domain i owned for 7yrs.

So i know exactly how this feels.

Interesting.

I just registered a domain name: BRANDNAMEPRODUCTHacks.com

("BRANDNAMEPRODUCT" are used just to not reveal the name
of the domain, of course..)

Am I going to get into trouble?

Not only am I including the brand name in it, I'm also
using the "H" work in it.

I was kinda concerned when I did, but I liked the name
so I did it anyway. Of course, no REAL hacks whatsoever
will be on it; just some tips and tricks to optimize usage.

What say you?

vmedia said:

you should somewhat develop the domains and flip them on DP. let the new owners worry about it...

Click to expand...

The suspense was killing me so I called their customer service department, Victor said was not sure of the policy but would get back to me. I made sure he knew that he knew of at least two examples of people using TMD as part of URL.



Thanks Victor, I look forward to reading TMD's policy on the use
of domain names with the term "TM" as part of a domain name.

With millions of users I'm sure I'm not the first to think of this
idea. But guidance on what usage TM.com would consider trademark
infringement would be most appreciated.

Regards,



We'll see what happens.

Everything happens for a reason, when one door closes another opens so, I make the best of it.

Anyone know if there is an online way to see if TM has successfully or not defended their TM? TM is possibly a generic term, most people use these 2 words at least weekly and possibly daily.

How do you know the C&D is real in the first place? Better check/investigate it thoroughly.

Few years back a guy sending C&D to threaten and took over many domains by claiming he is the representative/lawyer from xxx company. Many webmasters don't want to get into trouble and simply give up the domain to this shit until he get caught and sent to jail.

hey guys an update, i did not replied that mail, and i did not receive any other mail, so nothing happened at least for now.

For an example of a large company suing an individual, check out hxxp://3w.farmer*sinsuranc*egrou*psucks.c0m/ourstory.htm. One page in particular has a lot of information on trademark law and C&D that you may find useful: hxxp://3w.chillin*geffects.0rg/copyright/notice.cgi?NoticeID=5220.

TwistedNature said:

ya just give 'em the domain...not worth your time

Click to expand...

giving them a domain takes more time then ignoring them....

(Sorry for duplicate post, but couldn't edit/add to previous post.)

Consider the developed domain consume*rreports-o*nline.0rg. Archive.0rg shows the site being up since June 1, 2007. You can bet your britches that these guys have received a C&D, and yet - shady as the site appears to be (see this site for more info) - it is there nonetheless. Of course, there still could be a lawsuit in the works on this one, but with the site having been up continuously for over a year, the site owner doesn't seem to be too worried.

I'd would like to point out to everyone that serious attorney warnings do not include delivery by email. This email is not worth spit in a court. It's intended to scare you and while saving them legal fees. Think of it this way... How does the lawyer for consumer reports know that the letter didn't wind up in a spam box and deleted? Or forwarded to an email that is never read? Even if your email provider says the email was opened... they'll never prove the person responsible actually read it.

I would ignore the email until something shows up in the real mail requiring signature or proof of receipt. At that point you should consider dumping or keeping the domain.

Wow, half the people here missed the fact that the OP is outside of the US. If you're outside of the US, do like other people told you; tell them to go fuck themselves, literally. It's kinda like warez hosted on German servers, they (US gov't) can't do shit.

This is BS just keep your domain and ignore them...

If your feeling scared transfer it to me and ill tell them to personally fuck off :d

i would just ignore it personally