Apparently Facebook has not only continued their practice of filing disputes for domains names it saw infringing on its trademarks but now also has changed gears and filed a suit on July 22nd against more than 100 parties claiming Cybersquatting, Trademark infringement, False Designation of Origin, Trademark Dilution, Breach of Contract and Tortious Interference . The filing with the United States District Court for the Northern District of California (PDF) lists 104 different domains with the majority of names containing the term “facebook” in some variation (i.e. facebooki.com) but also lists the domains (14) that the typo-domains are/were redirected to (i.e. 1939.com which according to a notice posted on the site was a redirect service at one point and SocialRewardCenter.com).

The listed defendants are:

• Cyber2Media, Inc.
• Daniel Negari
• Cleanser Products
• Counter Balance Enterprises Ltd.
• FB Promotions/Freebie Promos
• Mackrooner Ltd. Inc.
• Newgate Services Ltd.
• Pioneer Enterprises Ltd.
• Rabbit Gogo Media LLC
• SMTM Enterprises Ltd.
• YourTick
• Zilt
• Jacob Daniels
• Jerry Hui
• Ryan Johnson
• Eric Jordan
• Karrie-Lee Karreman
• June Kimchi
• Tim Meyers
• Ankit Pandey
• S. Pace
• Elise Petri
• Mark Risi
• John Souza
• Michael Suggs
• and John/Jane Does 1-119

This topic was also covered by Elliot Silver and Bill Hartzer. Hat tip to Domain Trader.

3M has filed a broad lawsuit naming a larger number of registrars, webhosts and dns hosts for cybersquatting and infringing on the company’s brands. The lawsuit is also filed against some individual domain names that include the letters “3M” and “mmm”. A large number of the sites named in the lawsuit appear to be gambling sites, some of them using a logo that looks quite similar to the 3M logo. Some example domains names in the suit are mmmbet.net, 3mbet.net, 3m-sportbetting.com and 3MBet-Thai.com.

[via George Kirikos]

See the full list of the entities and companies the suit was filed against after the jump.

(more…)

According to MediaPost a judge has ordered Google to disclose financial metrics stemming from their Domain Parking and Error Pages programs within Google Adsense. The lawsuit that was started by advertising clients in 2008 and a recent pledge by Google to dismiss the suit before it goes to trial was rejected.

The marketers alleged that such pages are low-quality and yield fewer purchases or other conversions than ads that appear on Google’s search results pages. The marketers also said they believed that clicks on ads on parked domains “were unlikely to lead to desirable business outcomes, and that placement on such pages could damage their brands.”

Google rejects those claims and said that advertising on parked domains “perform as well as or better than ads on Search and Display Network sites.”

U.S. District Court Magistrate Judge Harold Lloyd in San Jose, California ruled that Google also has to disclose how clicks are discounted on which sites based on the “smart pricing discount”.

[via MediaPost]

In our previous post about the news that Verizon had won a default judgment against domain registrar OnlineNic, we pointed out an important fact in the case. The registrar OnlineNic is a owned by a Chinese company.  The company is listed on the ICANN list of registrars as a US based registrar and reportedly has a presence in San Francisco, but questions are being raised whether Verizon will be able to collect on this judgment. (more…)

The Vulcan Golf vs Google et al (including IREIT, Dotster, Sedo and Oversee) case has been green-lighted by the court to move forward. However the court has ruled in favor of the defendants to dismiss some of the other charges including the conspiracy, consumer fraud and RICO charges

The court has made a ruling that will potentially have a great impact on all domain name owners, parking companies and search engines. According to the judges ruling :

It is plausible that the [plaintiffs’] allegations fall under the ACPA prohibition of “trafficking in,” which is defined by the ACPA as engaging in ‘transactions that include, but are not limited to, sales, purchases, loans, pledges, licenses, exchanges of currency, and any other transfer for consideration or receipt in exchange for consideration.” 15 USC(d)(1)(E)

This means that the Anit-Cybersquatting Protection Act is being interpreted to apply not only to those who own the domain names and engage in cybersquatting but also anyone that would be profiting (trafficking) from the domains. The case is proceeding because the court was not compelled by the defense arguments that their processes were automated and that their involvement in the alleged cybersquatting was minimal.

“Google pays registrants for its use of the purportedly deceptive domain names, provides domain performance reporting, participates in the tasting of domain names, uses semantics technology to analyze the meaning of domain names and select revenue maximizing advertisements and controls and maintains that advertising.”

Sarah Bird has written a great analysis of the case at SEOMoz and discusses what’s next and what the case could mean to domainers and the domain monetization business.It’s well worth the read.

The bottom line: You don’t have to own or register the domain to have potential liability for cybersquatting under ACPA. As far as I know, this is the first case to make such a ruling. In every other ACPA case that I know of, the defendant owned or registered the domain, usually in addition to trafficking in it.

Sarah’s most important point is that the plaintiffs in this case have “an uphill battle” and a “long way to go” in proving that Google and the parking companies acted in bad faith and knowingly were infringing on the trademarks. This case will surely change the strategies and monetization of domain names at search engines, especially when pertaining to potentially infringing domains, but it will also radically redefine what the scope of cybersquatting.

Please note that the following is a parody intended for April Fools day 2010.

In a move reminiscent of the Coke vs Coke Zero lawsuit , Verizon Wireless has sued Verizon Internet over trademark infringement.  Attorneys for the two companies refused to comment on the pending legal battle.

Verizon may be best known as one of the most aggressive companies in pursuing legal cases against anyone in the domain space who infringes on their trademark.  The company, however,  is also widely known and has been sued previously for monetizing on trademark error traffic itself on Verizon internet services.

Verizon Wireless clearly has had enough of paying for ads that were showing up on Verizon Internet. It’s unclear if Verizon Internet will counter-sue Verizon Wireless for serving Verizon Internet ads on their mobile platform.