Domain name Problem?

chrisb72 · May 28, 2008

I used to work for a company called ABCInvestigations. They were a POS company, robbed me of a bunch of work hours, then when I was done, charged me $2700 for training fees and also kept my final check. When I was done working for them after 3 months, I didnt make one dollar and I owed them money. So I picked up the domain name ABCInvestigations.NET and wrote a full page about my experiences with the company. In no way did I slander anyone, name any one person and call them any names, I merely told of my experiences and how I was basically duped by the company. How they shave hours from their workers to make more on their end but the client thinks they are doing a job for a minimal cost. Well, I had the site up for about 9 mos and I got papers that I was being sued for "trademark infringement" because I cant use the domain name ABCInvestigations.NET ? I also owned the .org and .info of the name too so they are incorparating their suit to include those names. Can someone give me a little insight into this? Should I go get ABCInvestigationsSucks.com ?

BidNo · May 28, 2008

I'm not a lawyer but believe you are absolutely fine under freedom of speech rulings. Resist the urge to make any changes now as they'll say it validate their claim. And yeah, go register the ...sucks.com too.

Rockefeller · May 28, 2008

Do you think Microsoft is entitled to microsoft.net? I'm sure they are..I would hand them over..they can sue up to $100,000 in damages..per domain name.

BELLC1 · May 28, 2008

It probably would have been better to put up a blog or something on an Investigators forum or the like rather than to get a domain name in their company name. JMHO.

tinner666 · May 28, 2008

Get the 'sucks' too. Maybe put your visible site on it, then do 301's from all the others you have, and mask them.

DNQuest.com · May 29, 2008

Is that the actual domain name or an example? It seems it is forwarded to an actual company in India.

Anyway, suck sites have long been defended successfully, but there are certain "do's and don'ts" of running one that are along the lines of "fan sites". Free speech is protected. If you are telling the truth and your side of a story without libel and as long as you make the site obviously not affiliated with the TM holder, that will go a long way in your defense.

And yes, someone could have microsoft.net other than MS as long as they follow the proper way to do so.