On Friday I received a cease and desist letter from this domain that was very similar to one that I had an old blog on. My non profit blog apparently was violating their service mark and my domain name was very similar to theirs. I had no idea what a service mark was (I’ve only heard of trade marks before) anyway (the letter was from the Vice President not a lawyer) they requested I take down my site and also hand over the auth code for the domain – they gave me a 10 day period or else they would take legal action.
Now I’ve complied on all counts and I’m in Canada so apparently i could of done nothing and been ok because they don’t have a service mark here.
Does anybody else think this is a dick 1st move to just send me a C&D instead of a email to explain that they remove their two word phrased service mark from my website title, considering I wasn’t even profiting from using the domain at all. And do you think I will get a response back from them again, I notice that they have not tried to transfer the domain despite the fact that I gave them the auth code 5 days ago.
play dumb bro
Letter?
what letter?
It was an email actually and i already replied to it saying a) ive deleted my website and b) heres the auth code because it was a throwaway domain anyway.
but i still think hes a dick.
Just was wondering if other people get sent these types of things.
DO NOT give into it. Unless you get a court notice or LEGAL or ICANN papers, it’s almost always a scare tactic. You’re not using it for profit anyways and I assume it’s not offense to the company.. If they want the domain so badly, they will spend 4-6 months trying to get it, and you won’t have to worry about paying for anything.. Best advice is don’t ever settle until you have to. Always see how far they will take it, because it’s much harder for them to do anything.. Also, NEVER offer to sell it.. If you can do those three things, then they really can’t do shit. Also the vice president? Fuck that person, he’s not a lawyer, he’s not with ICANN, it’s a personal letter. Chances are he’s going to have to pony up a few thousand $$ to get a lawyer to try to get it.
There actually isn’t that much they could of done. It is actually usually a great benefit to run a business in Canada for this fact. Most trademarks (expect big corporations) don’t cross the border.