Madonna wins domain name battle

 Pop superstar Madonna has won her case at an international panel to evict a New York cybersquatter from the Internet address madonna.com, which was initially a porn site, new Jersey businessman Dan Parisi owns the domain name and has offered it to Lincoln, Neb.'s Madonna Rehabilitation Hospital, currently located at madonna.org. Hospital spokeswoman Carol Jess said the singer has threatened to sue Madonna Rehabilitation if it accepts the name from Paris i, who told the hospital it could have the site only if it agreed not to transfer the domain to the singer.

Kodak Wins Russian CyberSquatting Case

After more than a year and 20 lawsuits, U.S. camera giant Eastman Kodak finally won a case in a Moscow court against the man who operates the Internet site kodak.ru.
In a decision Kodak called historically important for the Russian Internet, the Moscow arbitration court ruled Wednesday that businessman Alexander Gundul has no right to use the Kodak domain to promote his retail electronics business.
"The ruling is a revolutionary thing," said Yury Vatskovsky, Kodaks lawyer. "Such cases in Russia usually end in defeat for the [plaintiff]."
Gunduls site displays only Kodak cameras and has two disclaimers posted on the bottom that say, "This site is not the site of the Eastman Kodak Company" and "The company Spectrum Service has the right of use to this site."
By clicking on any of the cameras posted on the site, the Web user is taken to another page that gives information about the product and displays a "where to buy" button, which links to photocd.ru the home page of an electronics store called Digital Photo Service that sells everything from videos to computers.
The court ruled that the use of the Kodak domain name to lure customers to Digital Photo Service was an infringement on Kodak and ordered Gundul to stop using the site and pay the U.S. firm 2,600 rubles (US $93) in compensation.
Gunduls lawyer, Sergo Selivanovsky, vowed to appeal. "I am sure that Gundul did not break the law," he said.
But Vatskovsky said he was confident Kodak would take control of the domain name by December, which would stretch the legal odyssey to 15 months.
In September 1999, the arbitration court rejected Kodaks case against the agency in charge of registering dot.ru domainnames the Russian Institute for the Development of Public Networks, or RosNIIROS.
At the same time, Kodak was also pleading its case against RosNIIROS with the Anti-Monopoly Ministry. That, too, proved unfruitful. So Kodak changed tactics it decided to go after Gundul himself.
Vatskovsky said inadequate laws and incompetent judges were the reasons the case dragged on for so long.
"In dealing with our case, they looked at a 1992 ruling by the Supreme Arbitration Court concerning the use of trade names, as opposed to domain names, and ruled that if kodak.ru does not indicate the legal status of the company, like Co., Ltd. or Public Company, then one cannot sue," Vatskovsky said.
That 1992 ruling, however, is precisely what Gunduls lawyer is pinning his hopes on. "We have no other laws," he said, "other than the 1992 circular letter of the Supreme Arbitration Court stating that the firms name should necessarily include its legal status.
"The fact that Kodak won just one case does not prove anything. Well see what happens with their other suits," he said.
RosNIIROS spokeswoman Kiran Litvinova called the courts decision a "triumph" for the domain name controlling body.
"The Kodak

Should You Have Keywords in Your Domain Name?

The answer of which depends not only on how different search engines treat keywords in your domain name, or URL, but also the size of your advertising budget, and other factors. The term keyword stuffing, referring to pages that are artificially inflated with keywords, applies also to domains that are stuffed with keywords, in the fashion keyword1keyword2keyword3.com. Instead of going into a lengthy analysis of keywords in the domain name, however, we'll point out two approaches to identifying your target audience that should help you decide how to shape your domain name. In the end you will see that the issue of whether or not to include keywords is not the most important one.

Domain Name Trademark Dilution by Tarnishment

Plaintiff claimed common-law rights in the mark PAPAL VISIT 1999 and variations of that mark in connection with the visit of Pope John Paul II to St. Louis, Missouri, which occurred on January 26, 1999.  Defendant operated websites located at the domain names “papalvisit.com” and “papalvisit1999.com,” which contained information on the Pope’s visit.  But virtually every page on defendant’s websites also contained banner advertisements that linked to its adult-entertainment sites.  The websites also featured pages devoted to off-color stories and jokes regarding the Pope and the Roman Catholic Church.  Plaintiff sued, alleging that defendant’s websites infringed and diluted plaintiff’s marks.  Ruling only on the dilution claim, the court characterized defendant’s activities as a cyberspace “bait and switch” scheme and held as a matter of law that defendant was making commercial use of plaintiff’s marks in commerce by purposefully promoting its Internet services to users who expected to access a website sponsored by plaintiff.  The court further held that plaintiff’s “famous” marks and the spiritual image associated with them had been tarnished by use of the marks in connection with websites advertising and promoting sexually explicit materials and services.  The court did not specifically address, however, the issue of why PAPAL VISIT was a protectable mark, let alone a famous one sufficient to qualify for federal-dilution protection.  This decision was subsequently withdrawn at the request of the court.

Importance of Keywords in Domain Name

                                                                                           

Keywords in  domain name are very important! always we hear SEO people and Domainers always express that keywords in our domain name are important, 

Dell Sues Affiliates

Dell affiliates Alf Temme, Lars Crispin Temme and Kim Temme are in big ka-ka for profiting from the avails of typosquatting.

The typosquatters registered d3ell.com, de3LL.com, d4ell.com, de4ll.com, dedll.com, derll.com and dxell.com, all of which redirected visitors to Dell.com through their affiliate links.

Dell has taken legal action on the basis of trademark infringement and wants the the defendants to hand over the domain names, and to pay legal fees and damages.

I dunno, but the terms and conditions of Dell’s affiliate program at Linkshare are pretty darned clear and posted right there on the front page …

By partnering with Dell, you have agreed to refrain from the following activities, and any violation of this Section shall be deemed a material breach of this Agreement:

(a) Use or otherwise incorporate the word “Dell” or variations or misspellings in the domain name(s) of your Site(s), on any meta tags of Web pages comprising your Site, or in advertising or searchable keywords.

(b)You may not bid the following: all trademark and brand terms, including but not limited to “Dell” “Inspiron” and “Dimension”.

(Dell will probably drop me as an affiliate after their name shows up in the title bar of its post.)

CYBERSQUATTING

 There is no single definition of cybersquatting, generally, if someone who lacks a legitimate claim registers a a domain name with the intent to sell the name, prevent the trademark holder from gaining access to the name, or divert traffic, this activity will be considered cybersquatting. In the typical case of cybersquatting, the cybersquatter registers a domain name using a trademarked company name, and then offers to sell the rights to the domain name to the trademark owner for a large price.