Fair Use of domain name - NOT!!

[ayianapaexposed]

Hi All

I shall explain a little about the situation so you can help to the fullest - hopefully.

I run my own website and forum promoting a town on the island where i live.

 

I used to work for another company as moderator on their site (unpaid) when my posts all mysteriously disappeared I decided enough was enough and I would start up my own site.

 

My domain is ayianapaexposed.com the site is doing OK, but in no way a real competitor to another site which has been online for many years (we've been online just 1 year). Anyway AYIA NAPA (is the english way of spelling the town ) whereas AGIA NAPA is the greek way.

 

The other site has registered agianapaexposed.com and it directs to their site.

 

I have been promoting my site (costs all to me - I am not a company) with free advertising for some companies, job offers for tourists etc, and now it seems my hard work is being hijacked by the other company.

 

I did it just as something to do in my spare time, but now I am really ticked off!

 

Can I do anything about it?

Or is it just a case of all if fair in love and war??

Edited April 14, 2009 by ayianapaexposed

[Wickham]

From what you say, Agian Napa is the greek way to spell the name, so they have a right to use that name. There are lots of situations where a domain name is similar to a competitor's domain name, but designers must not copy the design of another website.

 

So, if the website looks like your website, then I think you would have a good claim against them.

[LSW]

Internet Law is a real grey area. Only a Lawyer can really answer you. You can file a complaint with the top most domain name group... I dop not reacall the name off hand, I think ICAAN.

 

Right off the top, I would say their stunt is unethical but legal. The simple answer is you should have bought both names and pointed to your site. along with .NET, .INFO etc.

 

Actually, why .com? Is it commercial? are you selling things? If it is more informative then it should be .info or .net maybe. I would leave .org for official use by the town.

 

Check and see if both your and their spelling is available in .info and then grab them up if not along with .net or .org. and point them all at your site. You could officially ask them to give it up or sell it to you as they are all but copying you, they could have used another word than exposed and it could fly in court, but again a lawyer would be the answer.

 

I cannot use a name that is identical to big groups all except the spelling, I cannot use WaltDissnie.com... unless I can prove that is my name and how it is spelled. In Germany a guy had a web site for years based on his last name Ferrari, he lost and had to quit using it, but the car company had to buy it from him as it was his legal name and they had no web site when he did his.

 

In the 90's it was common for dirt bags to buy popular names and not use them, just wait till it became popular and sell it at a profit. Some guy named Obama is going to run for president? Buy his name, say Obama.com. Then when they go to create a web site... you own it and they have to buy it from you for big bucks sort of thing so the courts and ICAAN got hard on such things.

 

Whitehouse.com was a porn site long before Whitehouse.gov went online. Imagine that when school kids wanted to visit it. The porn site was quite successful, but the owner finally volunteered to close it due to the confusion. In Berlin Germany we had a fellow who was the last of the family line of Vlad Dracul, he was adopted. He went on a rampage sueing anyone using vampires or the name Dracul etc., but the courts tired of him and began refusing such cases from him. he even claimed sole right to the use of the term Dracula or use of the image etc., but the courts laughed him out as that belongs to the Bram Stoker blood line as the character name was ficticious and only based on Dracul.

 

So you see there are presedence to register a complaint about this site using a name identical to yours. But is it worth the money to follow up? In theory why should I not be able to buy the same name but a different ending as you have the one I wanted? They would look at the web site, if I am clearly trying to ride your wave... they may do something... hard to say. I have LSW-WebDesign, there are other LSW sites out there but we cannot complain about it as one makes knives, another is part of a university... there can be no confusion as we are in different businesses. So it is tricky, expensive and is it worth the trouble? You could maybe claim copyright on the anme and it may work.