Can anyone summarize all the potential legal difficulties a domainer can get into?

[crumblepie]

I once paid 10,000 euros damages for a domain that earned me 7 euros. Having your domain taken away is not the worst case scenario.

That's just what I needed to know. Thanks Rob! Being a domainer is risky business it seems. It's ridiculous to have to pay that much for a domain earning so little. That's exactly the sort of thing that scares me from being a domainer. I know we have to take risks to be successful, but suppose I had a hundred domains earning me $7 each per year, and then something like that happened. It would be awful. Just.. awful. I feel for ya mate.

[katherine]

As long as you avoid TMs and otherwise questionable domains you should be fine.
I say 'should' because no business is without risk.

I would say that the most serious and common issue in this business is... wasting too much $$$ on useless regs.
But many if not businesses involve a higher level of risk than domaining imo.

[crumblepie]

That eases my worries a bit, thanks for the good advice katherine! I agree with everything you said. I never thought about the risks that other types of businesses involve - in comparison, domaining does seem more appealing. Being a tour operator, or a real estate agent for instance would involve higher risk. Coming from a webmaster background, domaining seemed alluring, but when I started reading the legal section of domain forums, it dampened my enthusiasm a little. I hear about cases involving simple acronyms, and it doesn't make sense to me for a company to sue a person holding a domain name that is an acronym for many different things. It takes just one bad egg to ruin the whole domaining experience.

[fab]

I once paid 10,000 euros damages for a domain that earned me 7 euros. Having your domain taken away is not the worst case scenario.

Would you have feltr better if you won the case, but had to pay that price in lawyers fees!