.org, .org.uk and charities

[Validweb]

There are some well known charities which have only registered their name in the form of
xyzcharity.org
or
xyzcharity.org.uk
The deliberately don't register the .com name, in order to emphasize their charitable, non-commercial status. (.com is supposed to mean commercial).

If, as in the case above, one finds that the domain
xyzcharity.com
is available
are there circumstances in which the domain could be registered and used with impunity?

regards

[davidthornton]

Originally posted by Validweb
There are some well known charities which have only registered their name in the form of
xyzcharity.org
or
xyzcharity.org.uk
The deliberately don't register the .com name, in order to emphasize their charitable, non-commercial status. (.com is supposed to mean commercial).

If, as in the case above, one finds that the domain
xyzcharity.com
is available
are there circumstances in which the domain could be registered and used with impunity?

regards

It depends on the domain name and how generic it is really. I'll make one up:

shelter.org - charity for homeless people
shelter.com - generic and could be used for anything.

If, however, you want to specifically add the word 'charity' into the domain name then you might be on dubious ground.

[Validweb]

David, thanks for your input.
It would seem that there are not special rules for this .org situation?

To clarify, the U.S. equivalent of Wimbledon is the US open,
www.usopen.org. I guess it has charitable status in the states.

There is another official looking site, which must get a heck of a lot of traffic, at
www.usopen.com

I never heard of the organization that usopen.com seems to represent, the usga. I think everything on usopen.com has been contrived to cash in on traffic from usopen.org (One of the pdf files at usopen.com, for example, gives details of a $165,000 corporate hospitality offer).

So I'm wondering if the usopen.com domain is at risk, either from a udrp or court action. Perhaps usopen.com could claim usopen.org is not entitled to their domain, because usopen.org is a charity, and .com means commercial.

What do you think?

cheers

You'd think a court somewhere would believe that the USG has a common law trademark on "whitehouse", but it's pretty common knowledge that whitehouse.com is not the Bush's family album.

[dtobias]

The USGA is the United States Golf Association. The usga.com site is apparently about the golf U.S. Open, not the tennis one. Several different sports have championships named the "U.S. Open"; it's really more of a generic term for championships rather than a specific trademarked one.

[Validweb]

Hi
thanks for your input.
I understand many organizations could legitimately use usopen.com

The well known golf associations are the pga and the lpga.

I never heard of the usga, have you?

[DaddyHalbucks]

Stay far far away from charities!

Sure, they have no proper legal claim to generic acronym domains.

However, given the vagaries of common law trademarks, they can file a UDRP against you, or they can litigate you until bleed to death. They can drop $100,000 on their lawyers, and if you can't match them in court, you lose, even if the facts and the law are on your side.

If you go to a jury, they have the equity; they are the innocent charity and you are the evil cybersquatter/ extortionist.

Do not mess with charities, you cannot win.