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Please advise: Someone is blatantly copying my startup, on the .org of my domain

22 points by jhubert ↗ HN
My friend and I started a simple company in the beginning of January just to start specking out the idea. We just bought the .com of our domain when we got started, and are now kicking ourselves for it.

It turns out that our startup might actually be a good idea. We received a bunch of press without really meaning to, and 19 days after we had bought the domain, someone from France bought the .org and put up a holding page that used some of the same copy we had on our site.

I immediately started digging into the domain. I found and archived the person's name, home address, phone number, list of friends, other domains, and whatever else I could find from the internet. I also archived his twitter account and his version of our website for reference.

Flash forward 1 month; As we get ready for our launch, the person has updated his website and started tweeting about it. His updated version clearly shows that he is building a competing product.

Now, I'm all for competition. If they had chosen a different name for their site, I would be fine with it. However, to me, this just feels like they are being a bad internet citizen and it really bothers me.

So, please advise. Have you ever been in a situation like this? How have you dealt with it? Do you have any suggestions for how we should deal with it? Tips, thoughts, etc would be really appreciated.

21 comments

[ 4.8 ms ] story [ 77.1 ms ] thread
kaisdavis
I am not a lawyer, so I strongly suggest contacting a lawyer and telling him exactly what you're telling us.

I also suggest contacting the 'squatter' and seeing if he chooses to tell you a story.

jhubert
Yeah, just contacting him and asking him what's up was my first reaction. I want to make sure that's not a bad idea or that I don't say something that could complicate things in the future.
slater
Some routes to take:

- Found a company with the same name, then send cease & desist

- File a notice with WIPO, nab the domain when/if you can prove that the person registered it in bad faith?

JonathanWCurd
Do you hav any kind of legal registrations, trademark, business filings. If so send the cease and desist but also send a copy to their domain registrar maybe they will shut down the site.
jhubert
We have a company that is registered with the same name, and I'm filing for a trademark right now.
JonathanWCurd
Not saying its the route I would take but you could share your story and the site name here and at other social sites like digg, reddit, etc and internet vigilantes might just do their thing to drive them away.

I have seen it happen before with design / logo theft etc.

nolite
seconded.. trying to go a legal route will cost alot of money and resources.. and do you actually even have any international legal recourse? not clear how without any real business or trademark. Social pressure works wonders though
nickconfer
I'd go this route. It will help you out the thief, get you some links from any added press, and possibly even help market your company further.

Lawyers are expensive and you could battle someone for a very long time. Is that really what you want to do starting out the gate? You'll get too distracted by this, focus on your company. At the end of the day people type .com in first and if you have the links, your domain will show up first in the search results as well.

jhubert
Agreed about Lawyers. I am happy to spend money on them as necessary for the right things, but this seems like something that could be very lengthly if not approached the right way... and one thing I know about hiring lawyers is that long problems have big bills. :p
jhubert
Yeah, I like this route a fair bit. I'd like to think that I'm not the only one who gets frustrated by people who would do this type of thing.

Thanks a lot for the suggestion. :)

My hesitation on something like this (and also the reason I didn't put our company in this post) is because I don't want to give him any unnecessary attention until necessary. Plan of attack being worked out now...

JonathanWCurd
Keep us updated. No doubt there are people here who can help spread the word.
jhubert
Thanks. I definitely will. :)
noonespecial
Here's some advice I learned the hard way.

Every time you register a dotcom you intend to use for business, register it as a trademark. Its cheap and easy. Just consider it part of the cost of domain registry.

This is helpful in two ways. First, it will prevent you from accidentally registering a domain that is too close to someone else's trademark (and losing your domain later in a nasty surprise kind of way). Second, it will give you a nearly bullet-proof automatic way to file a complaint with ICANN that will almost always result in you being given the offending domain.

In any case, head on over to http://www.icann.org/en/udrp to see what your options are. Just filing the complaint may be enough to cause your shadow to move on to less proactive victims.

jason_slack
isn't it like $325 to file a trademark?
kaisdavis
If you think 'this is a viable business, something that I want to spend my time working on to make something great' isn't $325 chump change?
jason_slack
True, in the grand scheme. You make a good point.
jhubert
Yeah, I started filing it this morning before writing this post. Trying to cover all of my bases. :)
suyash
trademark filing will only cover you in the US, you need to look at more options
justin
Why do you care? It is unlikely he will ever succeed if you are executing well and he just copies you. Also, you have the .com (i.e. the domain people will actually type in and go to by default). He has the .org (i.e. the domain that no one will ever think to go to).

Brush your shoulders off and focus on the important stuff.

jhubert
From an execution standpoint, I fully agree with you. That's what I did when we first found out that the domain had been registered and saw the site he had put up. I collected information and then left it alone to focus on our March 1st launch.

Now that he is being more aggressive, it's rude and a nuisance. He setup a similar facebook group to ours with a hyphen in the name instead of a space; He is tweeting about it and it's showing up in our name searches; etc.

Also, he is offering something similar to what we are offering as a (very inexpensive) service, for free; Which is just annoying and potentially confusing.

Trying not to focus on it. Serenity Now. :)

VladimirGolovin
Have your lawyer write a good, detailed DMCA complaint to Google and, possibly, cloner's hosting provider -- and make it quick, before they change the copy. If they modify the page later, use archive.org (hopefully it will pick up the current page) or google cache as a proof.

We once DMCAed a Romanian cloner who blatantly copied our top-selling shareware app and refused to take the clone down when I emailed him. His reply was along the lines of "suing is too expensive, you won't sue me".

We sent the DMCA complaint, and a result, he got kicked out of Google and all payment processing services (ShareIt, Regnow etc.) He later emailed me with peace offerings, but I just hit Del.