Your thoughts on Misspellings....

[RMF]

What do you guys think about registering domains that are misspelled trademark names?

If you think you will get lots of traffic from it, is it work registering?.

If the company comes after you, can you solve the problem by just handing over the name?.

If there are other similar misspelling names registered by other people, will the company come after you, but not them?.

What ways can you protect yourself if you do register names like that?. Do disclaimers protect you?. Is it a good idea to provide a link to the trademarked domain to prevent confusion?

RMF

 

[HOWARD]

The attorneys on this board have discussed typosquatting on dozens of threads. It has been equated to cybersquatting.

 

[draqon]

typosquatting is very profitable. i have one domain that gets a solid 2,700 valuable unique visits per day.

 

[Ari Goldberger]

Not only is this a risky practice with respect to the UDRP and ACCPA, the FTC has been known to take action, and you don't want to be up against FTC. On the other hand, if the "trademark" happens to be for a common word, you might be able to raise the same defense you would have for a correctly spelled common word, but I think the argument for a mistyped common word is less solid than for a correctly typed common word.

 

[jberryhill]

Amen, Ari.

There have been cases where mis-spelled common words prevailed, e.g. matress.com:

http://arbiter.wipo.int/domains/decisions/html/2001/d2001-0764.html

and hearld.com:

http://www.arbforum.com/domains/decisions/96551.htm

...both of which also turned on whether the complainant had a valid claim to the word in its correctly-spelled form.