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Ask YC: Stealing domains from the big dogs

1 points by jpeterson ↗ HN
Some time ago, I acquired a foreign tld name with the intention of doing a memorable name/url branding for a site I'm building. After I became attached to the name, I realized that the bottom level part of the domain is the same as the one for a rather large american .com (think sun.de but not sun or de).

My question is this: could the big company litigate and/or take the domain away from me? The branding of my domain is quite different from theirs, and it's done in such a way that it would take some effort to notice that they're the same.

6 comments

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kleevr
either way, I would try and document, (ie. submit to some exterior time indexed service) some branding details, drawing etc

these things can only help a litigous battle should it arise, and reserve for yourself, as long as they can't prove your infringing on a trade mark, a defense under copywrite...

rms
Are you in an industry competitive with the large American .com? The only way you can argue it's not a trademark violation is if your company and products are really different.
davidw
Probably depends on the country in question and their policies.
bigtoga
The only reason to acquire such a TLD is to set up a spam page/site. No one here thinks seriously that you have bought that domain with the intent to brand/build a product lol.
trevelyan
I think he's serious. If he were intent on spamming, why post here? Just host the computers abroad and run with it.

I think the rule of thumb with ICANN is: (1) never, never, never, NEVER approach or try to sell the domain to the big company, and (2) don't do something easily confused with what they do.

krav
Here's what you do: Create a site or service on that name that is completely unrelated to that company's business. Then, if they go to ICANN for mediation, they'll have a lesser case than if you just have a squatting page there.

If you currently have a squatting page, do something, put a blog, add content to it. Make it seem like you're using it for a legitimate purpose.