A FEDERAL COURT HAS RULED that Google can be sued for trademark infringement and cybersquatting for serving ads on sites with domain names that are similar to registered trademarks.
In the case, golf club manufacturer Vulcan Golf takes aim at Google for its "AdSense for Domains" program, which populates otherwise empty sites with AdSense ads. Vulcan Golf also sued other companies involved in creating and registering the sites, which have names like wwwVulcanGolf.com (without a period between www and Vulcan) and vulcanogolf.com.
As with "typosquatting" lawsuits, Vulcan Golf complains that Google and the other companies are unfairly harnessing its trademark. The theory is that these sites will be visited by people who are trying to reach Vulcan Golf, but err when typing the domain name into their address bars.
I have wondered how long it would be before domains that take advantage of traffic generated by typos, or altered versions of trademarks, would start seeing lawsuits.
Business owners work hard to build a reputation. It isn't fair for others to gain from that effort through subterfuge.
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Business owners work hard to build a reputation. It isn't fair for others to gain from that effort through subterfuge.