Use of my surname as a dotcom

[chriscolenso]

Hi all, I recently purchased my surname as a dotcom. It's an unusual name but there are a lot of us with it, and from what I can gather, anyone with my surname is related in one way or another.
One relative of mine who I do not know personally is a tad famous, and is about to become a whole lot more famous with the release of her new book which details her relationship with a mega star.
She owns the dotcom of her full name.
Would I be asking for trouble if I a) created the sub of her name, and b) created a website all about her?
eg: Say I own williams.com and she owns julywilliams.com, then I create july.williams.com and run a blog or wiki on her, hoping to get accidental traffic.

 

[Brett Lewis]

Hi all, I recently purchased my surname as a dotcom. It's an unusual name but there are a lot of us with it, and from what I can gather, anyone with my surname is related in one way or another.
One relative of mine who I do not know personally is a tad famous, and is about to become a whole lot more famous with the release of her new book which details her relationship with a mega star.
She owns the dotcom of her full name.
Would I be asking for trouble if I a) created the sub of her name, and b) created a website all about her?
eg: Say I own williams.com and she owns julywilliams.com, then I create july.williams.com and run a blog or wiki on her, hoping to get accidental traffic.

Hi Chris, I realize this response is a bit late, but what the heck. Generally speaking, registering a domain name because it's your surname is fine, but registering a domain name with the intent to profit off of another person's name or trademark is not. It doesn't sound like you personally know this "relative," or are doing this for her. Given your intent to use a third level domain to put up a fan site, and depending on how unique and well-known her last name is, you could be crossing the line. I'd need to look into how courts have recently treated third level domains, and see exactly what you are proposing to do, but the way you're post is written, it seems that your intent is to profit off of a third party's trademark, which is what the ACPA prohibits. Brett

 

[chriscolenso]

Hi Chris, I realize this response is a bit late, but what the heck. Generally speaking, registering a domain name because it's your surname is fine, but registering a domain name with the intent to profit off of another person's name or trademark is not. It doesn't sound like you personally know this "relative," or are doing this for her. Given your intent to use a third level domain to put up a fan site, and depending on how unique and well-known her last name is, you could be crossing the line. I'd need to look into how courts have recently treated third level domains, and see exactly what you are proposing to do, but the way you're post is written, it seems that your intent is to profit off of a third party's trademark, which is what the ACPA prohibits. Brett

Thanks for your informative reply Brett. I hadn't actually registered the name with any intent other than to own my names .com, it's nice to have [email protected]. But I realised the potential of the name in providing email services for example, to relatives, and also sub-domains.
And when I realised my cousin had released a book and that here own domain name was her full name without the dot, I realised I could get a lot of accidental traffic, if I created the sub (with the dot!). So yes, I thought I could put up a fan page or an info page, after all the traffic would likely arrive without my inviting it.
Oddly enough, I don't know most of my family, even though we connect on facebook, but we're all pretty far apart, location wise, and have always been.
So basically I was just going to put something a little more interesting than a simple landing page, in the hope of attracting stray traffic.