Here is What it Looks Like When Google Grabs Your Domain

Well, it seems things are hitting up on the cyber world. I would have advise you take legal action, but the stress, the calls, the investigation and overall, the time wasted might not be worth the stress.

Stay strong.

If Android term is copyrighted how is this movie allowed to keep its orginal name?

STKMKTFTGRU said:

If Android term is copyrighted how is this movie allowed to keep its orginal name?

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Because even Google knows not to mess with Goku.

coolkumar123 said:

They did same thing to me. Only difference was it wasnt a direct email. My whois was privacy protected so they filled a domain dispute Arbitration first and cancelled whois then sent me same legal documents. in the end they took over domain name and transferred it to a different registrar. After that i have stopped using trademark in domain names.

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This is my forth rodeo; all of the other three sent emails as well and two of them sent me overnight packages. I do not recall if they were had whois privacy though as it was a couple of years back for the last one.

2 huge transportation companies and one boat manufacturer... in fact my username is a nod to the boat manufacturer.

All of those domains I had were earners... the transport companies were adsense sites that made me over a grand a month each and the boat manufacturer was in the 600 a month range using CJ. In fact, I got nailed by the boat manufacturer as they were also an advertiser on CJ and somehow saw my domain in that system; I assume they have some kind of opportunity to find publishers that would fit them and up popped my domain.

I did not argue with any of them, I did drag my feet a little as there was revenue coming in but I knew I had to give the domains up at some point.

It's very weird how certain trademarks do this type of shit and other's could care less.

I've been using a trademarked domain for years now... before I even got into marketing it's almost 5 years old now. I asked the staff on their forums if it was ok to make the site and told them what I'd be doing with it. It's an industry standard music sequencer and I just do free tutorials, sell samples and act as an affiliate.

I've always been worried they may try to seize the domain. Because I'm half a competitor (we both sell samples) but I'm also an affiliate so I make them money. Android however is a completely different beast. The trademark piracy that goes on just in China (people selling counterfeit phones, etc) probably cost's them millions every year. So it would make sense for them to be much more aggressive in seizing these types of domains.

BreaknBrix said:

I asked the staff on their forums if it was ok to make the site and told them what I'd be doing with it. It's an industry standard music sequencer and I just do free tutorials, sell samples and act as an affiliate.

I've always been worried they may try to seize the domain. Because I'm half a competitor (we both sell samples) but I'm also an affiliate so I make them money.

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They likely take the view that you're promoting their cause, overall. Which is an intelligent view to take, in my opinion.
I recall a guy that was making Sketch-up tutorials (or perhaps selling courses, I don't remember), and he was using their trademark, but with their tacit approval (he'd emailed them to check, and hadn't received any reply from them) for quite a number of years. I don't remember what happened in the end, but I'm quite sure there was never an issue with the trademark use.

On the other hand, I can well understand why the commercial team over at Google would take the view that Greg's website wasn't exactly 'promoting their cause' in the same way that your sequencer site or the Sketch-up site was advancing the cause of their IP owners.

Hi Greg,
Thank you for posting your actual URL to study! I looked it up in the Wayback Machine and they have a few old pages from the site. It looks to me from that, in comparison to the Android Legal Notice and Google Trademark Permissions pages, that you might be ok on a new site without a Google trademarked word in the domain if you include the proper trademark and copyright attributions per those pages' requirements. The Google Play logo might have been too big, as well. Not legal advice of course, just my thoughts. Seemed like you must have had a great business going there!

Weird. I tried the Wayback machine when BTB first posted this (I have no desire to enter his niche, just wanted to see an example built by the infamous Greg) and found that Wayback's spiders had been blocked (good one Greg! Way to think ahead).

DjinnNTonik said:

Hi Greg,
Thank you for posting your actual URL to study! I looked it up in the Wayback Machine and they have a few old pages from the site. It looks to me from that, in comparison to the Android Legal Notice and Google Trademark Permissions pages, that you might be ok on a new site without a Google trademarked word in the domain if you include the proper trademark and copyright attributions per those pages' requirements. The Google Play logo might have been too big, as well.

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All I shared was the end result of the situation; there were letters and emails as well that predicated G getting the domain back.

In a million years I would not start that up again with the kind of recourse that G could inflict on the entity that owned that service in a civil court.

Whoaa.. so Google just took over the domain name? :O