Posted on 12/25/2008 6:09:58 AM PST by Diana in Wisconsin
New York, NY (AHN) - A court has awarded telecommunications company Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE: VZ) $33.2 million in a lawsuit against an Internet services company, which had allegedly registered hundreds of domain names with Verizon trademarks.
In the largest cybersquatting judgment ever, a federal court in the Northern District of California issued an order in favor of Verizon as domain registrar OnlineNIC tried to take advantage of Verizon and Verizon customers by using Internet names chosen to be easily confused with legitimate Verizon names.
Verizon said that San Francisco, Calif.-based OnlineNIC unlawfully registered at least 663 domain names that were either identical to or confusingly similar to Verizon trademarks.
"This case should send a clear message and serve to deter cybersquatters who continue to run businesses for the primary purpose of misleading consumers," Sarah Deutsch, Verizon vice president and associate general counsel, said in a statement.
"Verizon intends to continue to take all steps necessary to protect our brand and consumers from Internet frauds and abuses," Deutsch added.
The court concluded that the company's bad-faith registrations of Verizon-related domain names were formulated to attract web users who were seeking to access Verizon's legitimate websites. The judge calculated an award based on $50,000 per domain name.
Verizon was seeking as much as $66.3 million in damages over domain names, including myverizonwireless.com, iphoneverizonplans.com and verizon-cellular.com.
Darn, that’s a lot of money OnlineNIC will need to make up $30K at a time from the people who would rather settle out of court.
It seems harsh but its annoying when you type in a website and it goes to a parked site that leads you astray. lets say you want a Nissan and its Nissanusa.com but you type in nissanamerica.com and sure enough its a parked site with links to car insurance and new cars etc.
enough is enough, Verizon’s name is their property and internet scumbags have no business parking those domain names.
verizon is the evil empire.
I have no sympathy for Verizion, but cyber-squatters are scum.
evil? why?
/ thread semi-hijack
Some accountant in Omaha named Bartholomew Verizon may beg to differ. :-)
The Nissan case is not cybersquatting though.
The guy that owns Nissan.com is an Israeli Jew whose real name is Nissan. His business name was Nissan when Nissan Motors was selling cars in America as Datsun.
So I agree with all these judgments against companies like verizoncell.com or whatever the domains are infringing on copyright/trademark.
However nissan.com is an entirely different case. He just got it before Nissan Motors did. It’s kind of like that Canadian kid Mike Rowe who registered Mikerowesoft.com well, sorry, it’s his name and he wrote software. Not all of these cases are cut and dry as corporations like you to believe.
However most times the people registering know exactly what they’re doing.
I blame the UN.
Henceforth, I demand you stop infringing on my Trademarked Name, Lucido Porn Starlets, Inc.
I use http://www.clusty.com No problems to date, and it’s pretty thorough.
Merry Christmas, Laz! What did you get? Leather goods?
(A boot in the arse and a belt in the mouth?) LOL!
Well, I can tell you what I didn't get.
A good STD.
:(
LOL! Well, you won’t get one from me, either, LOL! I always practice Safe Posting. :)
um.... did you want one?
I’m not fond of the result, but I LOVE the process. :)
Because they refuse to spread the wealth.
They refuse to provide free service to society's parasites and subteens (of all ages)...
Your right cyber-squatters are scum, but Verizon has the right to protect its name, it has worked hard to earn a good reputation and the ones that claim they are “evil” are part of the crowd that envy the “evil rich”. If someone comes up with a product and works hard to market it and its a success and they become rich that does not make them evil. i.e. look at Bill Gates. You go Verizon!!!
Well, Verizon went to Federal Court instead of ICANN, so this thread (unfortunately) has little likelihood of becoming as epic as the other one.
Try www.goodsearch.com It will donate one penny to the charity or school of your choice for every search and if you click through to a search result and make a purchase, the vendor donates a percentage to your charity or school.
I love clusty.com for seaching blogs in particular.
We agree on this...
Use Firefox with the Customize Google add-on. Eliminates google ads and google’s tracking.
btt
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