Cybersquatting and Protection of your Good Name

Did you know your disgruntled customers could set up a website using your business name? It’s called cybersquatting, and unfortunately it’s a growing problem for businesses these days. While the issue has been resolved in some areas of the country, for Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware businesses cybersquatting is still a very real threat.

These so-called gripe cites are set up by disgruntled customers and even former employees to tarnish your businesses good name. A recent example of this phenomenon was the gripe site levinsonaxelrodreallysucks.com, set up by a former associate at the Levinson Axelrod law firm. In that case, the former associate had also set up a squatting site at levinsonaxelrod.net (the real firm site has a .com address). Although both sites were ultimately taken down as a result of litigation and a confidential settlement, the firm had to deal with months of time and cost in order to protect their business reputation. No doubt significantly more expensive where the services of the online reputation management firm they were forced to hire in order to keep perspective clients from finding the wrong website.

Currently, there is another case pending before the Third Circuit addressing a similar gripe site. In this case the site was set up by the former patient of 2 Lasik doctors who lost his sight after surgery. The jury found in favor of the doctors in the medical malpractice case, but the patient found another way to go after the doctors – he set up multiple sites in an attempt to ruin the reputation of the doctors who performed the surgery. The physicians responded by filing both a federal lawsuit as well as an arbitration dispute under the rule set out by ICANN, the organization set up to oversee Internet names. The arbitrator ruled that the sites were confusingly similar and ordered them taken down. The federal court claim is still proceeding to determine if the patient’s First Amendment right to complain trumps the doctors’ right to their own names. Because this issue has not been decided by the Court of Appeals in the Third Circuit before, businesses in the area are waiting on the results.

The most effective time for businesses to take action, as always, is before the problem arises. In many cases the simplest and cheapest thing to do is to register not just your domain name but all variations on your name and site address so that they’re under your ownership and control. If you become aware of a gripe site attacking your business, the intellectual property laws require that you take action promptly in order to protect your good name, or you could lose the right to do so. The attorneys at Danziger Shapiro believe in a multipronged approach to protecting your business, while litigation is often at the heart of that approach, sometimes there are faster ways to protect your good name wall the court case is ongoing.

The attorneys at Danziger Shapiro can assist you with protecting your business from this type of attack, and restoring your rights and reputation once it’s occurred. If you have a business in Pennsylvania or New Jersey and are facing this issue, please call us today to discuss how we can help you.

By: H. Adam Shapiro, Esq.