Hello guys! I signed up for Affiliateer.com, and started to promote one of their offer, Free Bally Fitness 7 day pass. As I'm a beginner, I thought I try out domain forwarding, and bought http://www.freeballyfitness.info domain name then forwarded it to my affiliate link. After this I put up some videos to youtube to promote my link. Then Bally's lawyer contacted me via email, to cease and desist use of this domain name. I told him what I was doing, and that Affiliateer didn't forbid the use of their name for this offer, so I didn't do anything bad. Now he wants me to transfer the domain name to them. It's not a big problem cause it only costed 1$, but I would like to know whether I made a mistake and he is right to claim my domain or should I keep it? I suppose they didn't contact Affiliateer, cause they didn't do anything.
They cant claim your domain, you can have whatever domain name you want so long as its not already taken obviously. The content of the site might be the only bone of contention but the domian name itself is yours. So in other words, dont worry about it.
NO! Brooks is way wrong. Its a copyright issue and no u can not use their name in the URL and you will have to forward it to them unless you want to battle them in court. I went though this couple years back with a website called valuerightpharmacy.com fuckers didnt even have a website at the time and i had the domain and got the same letter that you got, so i blew it off.. bout a month later sure enough i got a certified letter stating i was being sued.. So to make a long story short got out of it but had to pay a lawyer to get me out of it and in hinds site i still lost the site. With a small company of course you can get away with it.. But if they big your fucked. They will use their might to bring you down. Just switch the domain name to healthcluboffers.com or gymoffers.com or what ever really dont matter. Then use a good PPV company and pound their home page..
You certainly can get ripped a new one when it comes to trademark infringement. You are better off taking the above advice to have a generic domain name from which to make your pitch. It simply is not worth the hassle, and I have yet to hear of one of these cases coming out in favor of the domain owner.
you should have bought the domain with fake info/prepaid cc or vcc . Use proxys. Buy it at a good location where they dont care about complaints that much . Eventually it might be taken down. Let they try to find Mr. Fake name at Fake address and see if they can issue a proper law suit. or just dont use their name but I have several websites that mock websites owned by the big boys and this strat works well for me. Some may say not to do it. Personally it works for me thats all im saying.
You can always go out swinging, create a bunch of wordpress mu sites ballyfitnessscam.mudomain.com show them your new focus, since you were promoting them. Find a golds gym offer to put up on that. Unless of course you are making good money with them.
LOL love it! You like me.. Might come might not.. Can just wait and see how serious they really are..
Not sure if it will work in your case, but same thing (different company) happened to me once... I wrote them a very polite email explaining that I didn't purchase the domain with bad intent, but that I was out $10 for the domain and that I wouldn't use it, but that I couldn't just "gift" the domain to them for free either... They paid me the $10 (without verifying how much it had really cost me) and I transfered the domain to them... At least you recoup your losses (and a little extra if you got the domain for $1) and you save yourself the headache (and I'm sure the $10 is less than the cost to have a lawyer write you a certified letter, which is why they do it)
give them the domain and move on. unless you are making $xxx,xxx a day from the domain it won't be worth the problems that can occur. If ballyfitness is a registered trademark they can open a world of hurt on you.
