Interesting Domain Dispute

[Jason]

In the past, we've talked about "domain squatting" a little bit in the past. This is where somebody knowingly buys a domain name that is trademarked in some way by another company, hoping to make money from it. It is now illegal to do this, however it appears simply owning a trademarked name is not, if you have a true purpose for it.

According to this article (http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200-8431649.html?tag=mn_hd) the website: http://alcoholicsanonymous.org/ won the right to keep their domain, despite a battle by Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc (the help group which I'm sure you all know). The battle was won because of their lengthy disclaimer, along with their use of the domain for a legitimate purpose. While I'm not encouraging domain squatting, this is something to think about if your bullied for using your domain name in a legitimate way. Thoughts?

[grifter2]

I agree somewhat with the new law. However, as concerns the Unofficial AA Website, I agree that they have a right to use the Alchoholics Anonymous name for their site, but I think that they should not be allowed to use the .org extension.

The .org extensions, logically, lead you to believe that it is the website for AA. The .com extension, I believe, should be the only extension allowed when using trademarked names for sites that have nothing to do with that organization.

[fredricknish]

AT alcoholicsanonymous.org they say that they Once hosted a
prono site.I think when they realized that Alcoholics Anonymous World Services would claim for the domain name they started a AAA forum:) They would have lost the domain name rights if they continued to host the porn site.
My opinion is that if someone has a domain of some registered trademark or company then they should not have any content relating to the registered trademark or company.A link to the registered trademark or company's site must be provided in their site.

[OZGRESSION]

A few weeks ago, Nissan (the car company), tried to get Nissan.com & Nissan.net in the same way. These two domains were apparently owned by a small computer company. Nissan Motors failed because the court ruled that the computer company didn't breach any trademarks & therefore was allowed to keep the domains. Personally, I would have sold them to Nissan and made millions :D:P:D

For more on this dispute, goto http://www.ncchelp.org