[well known company] fraud (dot) com - Free Speech?

[draggar]

IMO (and I am not an attorney nor do I play one on TV) (company)fraud.tld could be taken as accusing them of fraud which could backfire against you and the community for making false allegations.

You'd be far better off with (company)sucks.tld or similar since that is an opinion.

Yes, there is freedom of speech but there are a few exceptions:
1) You can't yell fire in a movie theatre
2) You cannot make threats of harm to another entity
3) You cannot make false accusations (hence (company)fraud domains).

You CAN make opinions as long as you make it clear that it is your opinion.

Just remember - you will be the one at risk, not your users. Even with well written disclaimers (company) can still come after you if they feel it is infringing on their mark or deliberately making false accusations to them.

[amplify]

Yeah, it's probably not such a good idea to develop on. Don't need troubles now since I'm in Japan and that would be one hell of a trip to go to court. I'll try to pawn it off at auction if anyone else can use it.

I figure maybe use it for parking and ISP's as the keyword until then though.

Thanks all for the input!

[ydnaemsti]

@draggar,

Freedom of speech allows for all 3:
1) You can't yell fire in a movie theatre
2) You cannot make threats of harm to another entity
3) You cannot make false accusations (hence (company)fraud domains).

It does not matter what you call your site. What matters is will the attacked entity have a reason to sue. If you have a site GoogleSucks.com and someone lies about Google and people stop doing business with Google, because of lies on your website then yes there is a case. It had nothing to do with the name of the site.

[owntag]

Disclaimer: Not a lawyer. To say someone/something "sucks" is simply stating an opinion. To say someone committed "fraud" is to directly accuse them of a crime (i.e. fraud is illegal). If you do this, I would say you had better have your facts straight and a lawyer in the wings. Possible exception would be if they've already been found guilty in a court of law.

Cheers,

I agree.

I have an active CompanySucks site, had been warned by their legal department 2 years ago, but nothing happened so far.