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Not This Again: Facebook Threatens To Sue Guy Who Registered 'DontUseInstagram.com'

from the don't-be-a-trademark-bully dept

Ah, this one takes me back to the early days of Techdirt, when the biggest nonsense we were writing about was giant corporate bullies threatening (or in some cases suing!) over so called “Sucks Sites” (that’s an article from almost 20 years ago!). The issue was that people who were upset with a particular company would register the domain of CompanySucks.com to (usually) put up a protest site. The company (and its lawyers) would then threaten to sue the individual for trademark infringement. There were some mixed rulings over those sites, but in general most have decided that sucks sites are not trademark infringement, and are protected under a variety of theories — including a lack of any possible confusion and because they’re nominative fair use.

You’d have hoped that, by now, big company lawyers would recognize all of this. Apparently not Facebook’s. Now, to be fair, as we recently discussed, for companies like Facebook, often they carefully police domains that make use of similar URLs in order to cut off sketchy phishing and scam sites. But it’s one thing to go after such scammers… and it’s another to go after someone who is obviously engaging in criticism.

Enter: DontUseInstagram.com, created by Paul Kruczynski.

The site now is designed to pretty much do what it says on the tin: give you reasons why you shouldn’t use Instagram. Whether or not you agree with that messaging, it’s clearly not infringing on Facebook/Instagram’s trademarks. Someone should probably tell Instagram’s lawyers. Because they sent a threat letter. In fact, they sent this threat letter before he’d even launched anything at the site, basically trying to intimidate him out of the site before he’d even done anything with it.

To Whom It May Concern,

We are writing concerning your registration and use of the domain name dontuseinstagram.com, which contains the Instagram trademark.

You are undoubtedly familiar with Instagram and its worldwide renown in providing photo sharing and editing services, online networking and related products and services through a number of channels, including through its mobile application software and its website available at Instagram.com. Instagram owns exclusive rights to the INSTAGRAM trademark, including rights secured through common law use and registration in the United States (Reg. Nos. 4,170,675 and 4,146,057) and internationally. Instagram is a global leader in photography software for mobile devices, with over 800 million monthly active accounts. Due to Instagram’s exponential growth and immense popularity, the Instagram brand, is frequently, if not daily, referenced in the media and pop culture. Its fame entitles it to broad legal protection.

We have recently discovered that you registered the domain name, which incorporates the famous INSTAGRAM mark. Instagram has an obligation to its users and the public to police against the registration and/or use of domain names that may cause consumer confusion as to affiliation with or sponsorship by Instagram, dilute the distinctiveness of its INSTAGRAM mark, or otherwise tarnish the mark. Accordingly, in addition to civil actions, Instagram and its parent Facebook have filed numerous proceedings pursuant to ICANN’S Uniform Domain-Name Dispute- Resolution Policy (http://www.icann.org/en/help/dndr/udrp) to secure the transfer of infringing domain names. Moreover, the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act provides for serious penalties (up to $100,000 per domain name) against persons who, without authorization, use, sell, or offer for sale a domain name that infringes another’s trademark.

While Instagram respects your right of expression and your desire to conduct business on the Internet, Instagram must take action to stop the misuse of its intellectual property. As you can imagine, various third parties around the world have attempted to wrongfully capitalize on Instagram’s reputation by registering domain names that include or are derived from the INSTAGRAM brand. Such names are confusingly similar to, dilutive of, and can tarnish the INSTAGRAM mark.

We understand that you may have registered dontuseinstagram.com without full knowledge of the law in this area. However, Instagram is concerned about your use of the Instagram trademark in your domain name. Accordingly, we must insist that you immediately cease using and disable either delete or transfer to Instagram any site available at that address. You should not sell, offer to sell, or transfer the domain name to any third party.

Please confirm in writing that you will agree to resolve this matter as requested. If we do not receive confirmation that you will comply with our request, we will have no other choice but to pursue all available remedies against you.

Sincerely,

Instagram IP & DNS Enforcement Group

Instagram, Inc.

Kruczynski was able to line up the Cyberlaw Clinic at Harvard Law’s Berkman Klein Center to help him respond to those Instagram lawyers, explaining to them in fairly great detail how totally full of shit their threat letter is in a letter from Kendra Albert,

The legal claims that your letters make are frivolous. Even worse, your overreach imperils Mr. Kruczynski?s First Amendment rights. Mr. Kruczynski?s domain name is not likely to cause consumer confusion, which Instagram would be required to prove in order to succeed on a trademark infringement claim. See Boston Duck Tours, LP v. Super Duck Tours, LLC, 531 F.3d 1, 12 (1st Cir. 2008) (citing Borinquen Biscuit, 443 F.3d 116 (1st Cir. 2006)).

To establish likelihood of confusion, a trademark owner ?must show more than the theoretical possibility of confusion.? Int’l Ass’n of Machinists & Aero. Workers, AFL-CIO v. Winship Green Nursing Ctr., 103 F.3d 196, 198 (1st Cir. 1996). For courts to find a likelihood of confusion, it has to be shown that there is ?a likelihood of confounding an appreciable number of reasonably prudent purchasers exercising ordinary care.? Id. Given that Mr. Kruczynski?s domain has not even been launched, Instagram cannot show more than a theoretical possibility of confusion. Moreover, as Mr. Kruczynski?s website dontuseinstagram.com currently resembles nothing like the Instagram website, it is inconceivable that any reasonably prudent purchaser exercising ordinary care would confuse the two websites.

Even in the scenario that Mr. Kruczynski?s domain dontuseinstagram.com becomes live and operates in a way Mr. Kruczynski originally intended it to, Instagram will not be able to establish that there is likelihood of confusion in Mr. Kruczynski?s registration and use of dontuseinstagram.com under the First Circuit?s eight-factor test. See Oriental Fin. Grp., Inc. v. Cooperativa De Ahorro Cr?dito Oriental, 698 F.3d 9, 17 (1st Cir. 2012) (citing Beacon Mut. Ins. Co. v. OneBeacon Ins. Grp., 376 F.3d 8, 15 (1st Cir. 2004)). Mr. Kruczynski did not intend to claim any associations with the Instagram mark and did not intend to compete with Instagram. In fact, Mr. Kruczynski?s domain would serve as a platform to criticize Instagram?s user privacy violations, not as a social media platform for users to share photos and accumulate followers. The goods or services provided by dontuseinstagram.com would be significantly different from those provided by Instagram, and the channels of trade and advertising would be very different as well. It is unimaginable that there would be evidence of actual confusion where Instagram users actually confuse Instagram with a website criticizing Instagram, starting from the domain name itself. Even assuming that Instagram has a strong mark that most people recognize, it is overreaching for Instagram to forbid others from registering or using any name that mentions Instagram without due regard of relevant laws.

The existence of a parked page on Mr. Kruczynski?s domain does not create trademark infringement where there previously was not any. See, e.g., Acad. of Motion Picture Arts & Scis. v. GoDaddy.com, Inc., No. CV 10-03738 AB (CWx), 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 120871 (C.D. Cal. Sep. 10, 2015) (holding that the plaintiff failed to meet its burden of proving that a domain name registrar who operates parked page programs acted with a bad faith intent to profit from the plaintiff?s marks). In fact, the existence of the parked page is largely irrelevant to the discussion of trademark infringement here, and you are overstepping by demanding Mr. Kruczynski remove the parked page on his own registered domain.

Your claim of Mr. Kruczynski?s alleged trademark infringement is ungrounded in law. The non-infringing nature of the use would have been obvious had an attorney even glanced at the name of the site.

To the extent that these emails were sent using an automated process that merely checks to see if a domain contains the word Instagram, and then automatically requests the transfer of a domain to you if it does, such behavior plays on the threat of litigation to suppress potentially lawful speech. I am aware that there may be many domains registered with the Instagram mark in them, some of which may be used for phishing or other nefarious purposes. But that does not justify a ?spray and pray? strategy where you automatically send notices of infringement without any human review. Such notices may serve to unlawfully intimidate critics, requiring them to find legal counsel.

That reply was sent back in November and it requests that Instagram retract the threat letter and provide “a clear statement that you do not intend to file suit over his ownership of dontuseinstagram.com.” Somewhat optimistically, it also said that such a letter should “be accompanied by a discussion of what processes you will implement in order to ensure any messages you may send to domain owners will not attempt to intimidate lawful users of the Instagram wordmark.”

Neither happened. Instead, Instagram just went silent. It’s quite likely that the human being who received the response letter realized how bad an idea it was to send that original threat letter, even if automated, but has just moved on to threatening someone else. But Instagram deserves to be called out for its practices which can lead to real intimidation for people, unlike Paul, who don’t have the ability to have a knowledgeable lawyer respond to the threat.

That’s unfortunate, because it means that there are no consequences for sending out such bogus, censorial threat letters. Well, other than having a site like Techdirt call out your stupid threats.

Filed Under: brand protection, chilling effects, criticism, domain registration, don't use instagram, free speech, sucks sites, trademark, trademark bullying
Companies: facebook, instagram

Facebook Abuses Trademark To Give New Prominence To Group Of Facebook Critics Who Are Trying To Shame Company Into More Moderation

from the dumb-idea dept

I’d been meaning to write up something about a new group of very vocal critics of Facebook who have set up a project to try to shame Facebook into being more aggressive with content moderation. They called themselves “The Real Facebook Oversight Board,” which is a snarky comment on Facebook’s still-not-operational Facebook Oversight Board. As I’ve said, the Oversight Board is an interesting, but very limited, experiment in removing some level of control over controversial moderation decisions and creating an external “appeals” process. I don’t think it will make a huge difference, but it’s worth watching.

The new group is made up of a mix of people who I consider serious and thoughtful critics of Facebook… and a bunch of people who I think are creating a moral panic around Facebook without understanding the real issues (and refusing to recognize the nuances involved in what they’re complaining about). I don’t know in which direction this group will actually go, but the involvement of those I consider to be intellectually dishonest grandstanders struck me as problematic (and I worry it will detract from the legitimate criticisms some of the other members will raise). It’s still not entirely clear what this group will do but it claims that it will pull publicity stunts to drive attention to moves by Facebook it disagrees with:

“We will use stunts, viral video, celebrity endorsement and skillful media management to throw a spotlight on the real-time threats to democracy from the misuse of social media platforms and big tech.”

As Casey Newton wrote, even if he was initially skeptical of the effort, when viewed as a media-seeking art project, perhaps it can have an impact.

And the first of its “stunts” seems to have been this name, which mocks the actual Oversight Board… and now it appears that Facebook fell face first into the trap. According to reporter Carole Cadwalladr (a very vocal Facebook critic), Facebook filed a trademark complaint about the group’s website, realfacebookoversight.com. And the company hosting the website suspended the domain, noting that it violated their anti-phishing rules (which seems… silly).

This seems like an unfortunately stupid move by Facebook. For years we’ve discussed how parody sites that mock or criticize websites are allowed, even when those sites use the trademarked names of the companies they’re criticizing. Facebook could have just let this site stay. It wasn’t trying to trick anyone. It was criticizing Facebook and even if I can understand the company’s frustration at some of the people involved, and their history of intellectually dishonest criticisms of the company, this move only creates a Streisand Effect that elevates this critical group as something Facebook is afraid of.

Filed Under: criticism, domains, oversight board, phishing, sucks sites, trademark
Companies: facebook, real facebook oversight board

A Decade After Realizing It Can't Threaten A Critic Online, UCLA Returns To Threaten A Critic Online

from the don't-they-teach-lawyers-the-1st-amendment-any-more? dept

Back in the early days of Techdirt, we used to talk about legal disputes involving so-called “sucks sites” — i.e., web addresses that use a company or organizations’ name along with a disparaging adjective, in order to setup a website criticizing the company. In the early 2000s there were a bunch of legal disputes in which overly aggressive lawyers would threaten and/or sue the operators of such sites, claiming they were trademark infringement. Spoiler alert: they were not trademark infringement. There was never any confusion over whether or not the sites were actually endorsed by the trademark-holder (because the sites were criticizing the trademark holder.) Nor, in most cases, was there any commercial activity, which is necessary for a trademark violation.

For the most part, lawyers have finally learned that going after sucks sites is a bad idea and we don’t hear of as many cases these days. But they do sometimes pop up. The latest is particularly stupid, involving the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). The details are laid out for you nicely by Adam Steinbaugh of FIRE (the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education), an organization focused on protecting free speech on campus.

You see, UCLA had done this before. Way back in 2009 it had threatened a critical site run by a former student:

In 2009, the university sent a letter to former student Tom Wilde, alleging that his website?s domain names, ucla-weeding101.info and .com, infringed on the university?s trademarks and amounted to a criminal act under California Education Code Section 92000, which purports to authorize public universities to police virtually any use of their name or acronym. FIRE wrote to UCLA in 2009, explaining that the First Amendment protects ?cybergriping? websites and noting that the university?s purported authority under the California Education Code was contrary to the university?s obligations under the First Amendment.

After some hesitance, UCLA backed down.

But, as you likely guessed, they’ve done it again. And, here’s the real kicker: UCLA sent a letter to the same guy over the same website. As Steinbaugh notes, the latest letter is less threatening and more friendly, talking about giving Wilde a “friendly reminder” and asking as a “courtesy” for him to “remedy” his claimed misuses of UCLA’s trademark and… building images (?!?). FIRE again took up the case, reminding UCLA of what happened a decade ago and asking it to retract the letter. Incredibly, UCLA refused to do so, saying that Wilde was creating confusion by using similar images and design. However, a quick comparison of the two sites suggests that no one is going to be confused that the one on the left is officially a part of the one on the right:

UCLA also had claimed in its new letter that it sent that in response to “an inquiry” about Wilde’s site. FIRE filed a public records request to find out who the hell “inquired.” Turns out: it was a UCLA staff member on the external affairs team who sent an email pointing to the site and saying:

Grumpy former student has created this FB page and website?was thinking that the Royce Hall image and use of UCLA in the domain name might both be no-nos.

This was under the subject “protecting the brand.”

Right. So this wasn’t someone confused about the site. It was someone who thought that they could go after a site that was critical of UCLA by abusing trademark law — something that has long been a non-starter, and which is an insult to the First Amendment.

You know how you protect your brand? By not threatening critics with a potential legal attack over First Amendment protected speech. And, also, not doing that twice.

Filed Under: confusion, criticism, free speech, sucks sites, tom wilde, trademark
Companies: fire, ucla

Terrible Ruling Allows Untied To Keep Its Domain But Not Its Soul

from the pointless-generosity dept

Let’s jump back in the wayback machine for a moment and discuss Untied, your primary source for customer and employee complaints about United Airlines. When we last wrote about the site in 2012, we first mentioned that Untied.com has been a thing since 1997 before detailing the lawsuit United Airlines filed in Canada after it found that Untied.com had redesigned its parody site to look more like United.com.

Untied, if you are not aware, is a site that started with a single person’s complaint about United Airlines customer service before morphing into an aggregator of such complaints from both customers and internal airline staff and former staff. If you want a bible to be written on what United has done wrong in the realm of customer service, you need not worry because Untied.com is that bible. Had this suit been filed in America, it would face a mountain of caselaw suggesting that so-called “sucks sites” are well within the boundaries of protected nominative fair use. It’s worth mentioning that Untied doesn’t actively attempt to mislead visitors to the site into thinking it’s affiliated with the airline. In fact, visitors are shown a popup upon visiting that alerts them to Untied’s status as a parody site. Even a cursory glance at the site’s contents would confirm that status, as the entire site is dedicated to taking a metaphorical dump on United Airlines’ reputation.

Despite the site having existed for so long, and despite the fact that the Streisand Effect exists, United Airlines filed its lawsuit, bringing all manner of attention to Untied that it otherwise would not have had, even as the airline is and has been maligned in nearly every corner of the internet for its laughable attempts at customer service. In its filing, United Airlines insisted that Untied had infringed its trademark rights and copyright rights with the site. It requested an injunction against the site before suggesting that just to make sure the injunction was clear, maybe the court ought to just hand the site over to United Airlines to boot.

“If the Court finds in favour of United Airlines and determines that an injunction should issue, the injunction needs to be clearly understood by the parties, and in particular the Defendant. As such, the Court may need to consider ordering the Defendant to transfer ownership of the domain name and other internet presences to ensure the injunction is clear and will be respected.”

Well, the court has ruled on the injunction. The good news is that the court declined to hand over the Untied.com domain to the airline. The bad news is that court does rule that the site is infringing both United’s copyright and trademark rights and instead said Untied can only keep its name if it ceases to be Untied at all.

The Plaintiff is entitled to an injunction restraining the Defendant’s use of the United Marks and the copyrighted works. The Court retains jurisdiction over this matter to provide effective relief against the Defendant. The Defendant may retain the use of the domain name www.untied.com – however, this must not be in association with the same services as provided by the Plaintiff.

As the folks who run Untied explain, the entire argument that United Airlines made in this action is that it too provides consumer feedback and complaint services for its own business, which is why it declared the public would be confused by the site. Effectively, this ruling allows Untied to keep its domain, but only if it ceases to be Untied.

Keeping in mind the position argued by United, that one of its “services” is dealing with passenger complaints, this would mean that the injunction would prevent Untied.com from existing as a site hosting passenger complaints against United. I feel that I have no choice but to bring this decision to the Federal Court of Appeal. Even if the wheels of justice are stacked against me as a self-represented litigant, defending myself against a massive corporation with virtually unlimited resources, I don’t want to throw in the towel in defeat.

It’s nice to see someone want to fight this out, but the focus here also needs to be on what an absolutely atrocious ruling this is from the court. Parody is to be protected on matters of copyright, whereas trademark law is focused on real or potential customer confusion within the marketplace. Again, this suit was filed in Canada, so the exact American standard for fair use doesn’t apply, but no serious examination of the Untied.com website would lead to the conclusion that confusion was any issue, only strengthening the stance that the parody status of the site ought to protect it from the copyright claim. To, in the face of all that, first rule otherwise and then make this meaningless concession only adds insult to injury. For United to spend half a decade doing battle with a site that echoes many others’ disdain for United’s customer service in the name of trying to censor that site makes zero sense from a purely business perspective.

Perhaps, rather than spending half a decade fighting a website about customer service complaints, United Airlines could have spent that time and money providing better customer service and not dragging paying passengers off their airplanes.

Filed Under: canada, complaints, customer complaints, sucks sites, trademark
Companies: united, united airlines, untied

Sen. Rockefeller Wants ICANN To Block '.Sucks' TLDs

from the a-sanitized-internet...-for-the-corporations dept

Another legislator has weighed in on governing the internet. This time, it’s not so much for “the children” as it is for the poor, oppressed corporations of the world.

Sen. Jay Rockefeller, the West Virginia Democrat, strongly suggested that the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, better known as ICANN, the body in charge of approving Web site domain names, should reject a proposal to allow ‘sucks’ as a new generic top level domain, referred to as gTLD.

In a letter to the organization, Rockefeller, who is chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, argued that the .sucks domain name could be abused by parties “to unfairly defame individuals, non-profit organizations and businesses.”

First off, simply saying a person, NPO or business “sucks” isn’t defamation. The content of those sites may meet that bar, but a domain name utilizing .sucks isn’t defamatory in and of itself. And it’s routinely been found that sites such as walmartsucks, etc. are covered under the First Amendment.

But Rockefeller goes even further than just assuming .sucks domains will be filled with defamatory content. He also assumes that anyone/anything confronted with a .sucks site will be forced to spend money fighting to keep their reputations from sliding into the internet toilet.

“I view it as little more than a predatory shakedown scheme,” Rockefeller said. “The business model behind this gTLD seems to be the following: force large corporations, small businesses, non-profits and even individuals to pay ongoing fees to prevent seeing the phrase ‘sucks’ appended to their names on the Internet.”

What Rockefeller fails to consider is that these entities could also do nothing. Fighting a “sucks” site rarely makes the situation better. But this is the way those to seek to govern the internet view things: as worst case scenarios played out against a Wild West background. There’s no room for subtlety in the debate and there’s no “fostering” of “conversations,” as those marketing these domains state in their defense.

And every new gTLD can be viewed as a “shakedown scheme.” Businesses rush to secure (or to block off) new TLDs in order to prevent domain squatters, competitors and critics from snatching them up. Singling out “.sucks” as nothing more than a predatory scheme ignores the reality — a new gTLD will always be a combination gold rush/shakedown.

Rockefeller points to one registration site, Vox Populi Registry, which is marketing .sucks domain names as “defensive” purchases — with a starting price of 2,500whichwillescalateto2,500 which will escalate to 2,500whichwillescalateto25,000 once the “sunrise period” hits. From this, he extrapolates a “shakedown scheme” across all registration entities, even as others have denied viewing this gTLD as an easy way to hoover up defensive corporate funds.

A spokesman for the other firm, Donuts Inc., said the company “carefully considered the utility of each gTLD for which we applied.”

He also defended Donuts’ business model which he said “is focused on providing Internet users around the world with real choice in how they craft their online identities. We are not soliciting, and have no plans to solicit, ‘defensive registrations.’”

So, there are those who facilitate an open internet, one that will certainly bring out the worst in some people. And there are those who assume only the worst kind of people exist and try to route the internet around them. But Rockefeller, like many other legislators who set their sights on making the web “safe,” fails to realize that it’s the internet itself that does the “routing,” and it views censorship as nothing more than damage to be avoided.

(Rockefeller may be more concerned than most, considering some of his biggest donors — AT&T, Time Warner and Verizon — are often referred to in phrases that end with “sucks.”)

Rockefeller envisions an internet where corporations and individuals seldom hear discouraging words, but that notion is entirely unrealistic. If he gets his way, the internet (as it were) will simply find another outlet for its frustrations with corporations, non-profit organizations and aggravating people — and it will still be composed (nearly) entirely of protected speech that “forces” these entities to play defense. And there won’t be a thing he can do about it.

Filed Under: domains, jay rockefeller, shakedowns, sucks sites, tlds, top level domains
Companies: icann

Disappointing To See Canonical Act Like A Trademark Bully Over Ubuntu

from the get-over-it-guys dept

Well, this is disappointing. Canonical, the company behind Ubuntu, apparently has decided to act like a trademark bully. The maker of a fairly popular version of Linux sent a cease-and-desist letter to the website FixUbuntu.com, which is a website run by Micah Lee (who happens to work for EFF), that shows Ubuntu users how to disable a default feature in Ubuntu that Lee reasonably considers to be privacy invading. It’s pretty straightforward, but Ubuntu’s trademark lawyers are trying to kill it. While the letter is more on the friendly end of the spectrum, it’s still problematic. It argues that Lee does not have the right to use the logo:

To keep the balance between the integrity of our trademarks and the ability to to use and promote Ubuntu, we’ve tried to define a reasonable Intellectual Property Policy. You can read the full policy at http://www.canonical.com/intellectual-property-policy. As you can see from our policy, to use the Ubuntu trademarks and and Ubuntu word in a domain name would require approval from Canonical.

Unfortunately, in this instance we cannot give you permission to use Ubuntu trademarks on your website and in your domain name as they may lead to confusion or the misunderstanding that your website is associated with Canonical or Ubuntu.

So, whilst we are very happy for you to write about Ubuntu, we request you to remove Ubuntu word from you domain name and Ubuntu logo from your website. We would highly appreciate if you could confirm you have done so by replying this email to us.

Of course, legally, this is hogwash. As we’ve been pointing out for years and years, the case law is pretty damn well established around so-called “sucks sites” (sites that criticize or discuss a brand, including using that brand in their own domain) are not, in fact, trademark infringement. In response, Lee and his colleagues at EFF came up with a wonderful disclaimer they’ve added to the site just to make it extra clear that there will be no confusion:

Disclaimer: In case you are either 1) a complete idiot; or 2) a lawyer; or 3) both, please be aware that this site is not affiliated with or approved by Canonical Limited. This site criticizes Canonical for certain privacy-invading features of Ubuntu and teaches users how to fix them. So, obviously, the site is not approved by Canonical. And our use of the trademarked term Ubuntu is plainly descriptive—it helps the public find this site and understand its message.

How often do you get to put the terms “complete idiot” in a disclaimer?

Of course, as Lee also points out, if Canonical really wants the site to go away, they can make that particular feature opt-in instead of default. But, even if they don’t, their cease-and-desist demand is meaningless, because it’s not infringement. It’s too bad that a company that is an open source leader would also get into trademark bullying, even if it’s done so with a smile.

Filed Under: disclaimers, micah lee, privacy, sucks sites, trademark, trademark bully
Companies: canonical

United Airlines Sues Passenger Complaint Site Untied

from the really-now? dept

I had really thought that we’d reached the point where lawyers working for large, well-known companies recognize just how incredibly stupid it is to file lawsuits against websites that criticize them. Sure, a decade ago or so, it was common for big companies to go after so called “sucks sites” or “complaints sites,” often alleging trademark infringement. But, at some point, many of them realized that (a) trademark complaints were a dead end since there was no confusion and (b) that these lawsuits only drew a lot more attention to the sites in question. Apparently, however, there are still some throwback lawyers working for United Continental, and they’ve decided to go after a popular passenger complaints site that goes by the creative domain Untied.com.

Untied has been around for fifteen years — so you’d think United would be used to it. However, apparently they got pissed off that Untied redesigned its site to look something like United’s current design. The top image is the Untied complaint site as it looked recently (it has since added some more features to make it clear that it’s not actually United’s site). The bottom image is United’s site:

There are obvious similarities. The guy behind Untied, Jeremy Cooperstock, insists that this makes sense since his site is a form of parody. While the likelihood of confusion argument is certainly stronger here (currently when you visit the website, you have to agree to a popup that warns you the site is not United’s), I still wonder how reasonable the lawsuit is. Cooperstock insists that it’s a SLAPP suit, though others think United may have a legit claim.

No matter where this falls legally, however, I can’t see how this could possibly make sense from a business standpoint. The end result — win or lose — is going to be that a lot more people become aware of Untied, and are likely to think of United as being a big bully against the small guy helping passengers who had bad experiences with the airline. Of course, some of the details may be in the actual filing, which doesn’t seem to be public yet. The lawsuit was filed in Canada, and the docket page doesn’t have the actual filing yet. Oddly, however, it does claim that the case is about patent infringement. I’m going to assume that’s a data entry error somewhere, however…

Filed Under: complaints sites, streisand effect, sucks sites, trademark, untied
Companies: united

Demand Media Threatens Critic Blog

from the are-these-lawyers-stupid? dept

There are a ton of so-called “sucks sites” out there, set up to critique or just ridicule a particular company. Early on, companies often tried to sue such sites out of existence using questionable trademark claims. These efforts mostly (though not always) failed. But, more importantly, the process really backfired thanks to the Streisand Effect. Every time a company went legal after a sucks site, the site and its content only got significantly more attention. Two years ago, it was claimed that corporate lawyers had finally wised up and realized that going legal on such sites only gave those sites significantly more attention.

However, since then, we still hear about such legal threats all the time. Apparently there are still a lot of lawyers out there who haven’t received the message. The latest apparently is Demand Media, the content farm giant. Its lawyers sent a cease & desist and a takedown to Demand Studio Sucks.

Rather than a full legal threat against the site, it was focused on the fact that some users on the site had apparently uploaded a presentation in the forums, which Demand considered to be proprietary. Thus, the basis of the takedown was that it violated the company’s copyrights and trademark. It appears that DSS’s ISP overreacted and rather than taking down the specific content, took down the entire forum. Of course, all this has done is drive much more attention to the content Demand wants removed: a presentation slide showing how Demand is trying to increase quality (now that Google has changed its algorithm to punish crappy quality content that Demand has been associated with in the past).

Demand’s lawyers claim:

Demand Media has not granted you any license to use the Demand Media trademark, to publish or copy Demand Media copyrighted content, or to publicize Demand Media?s confidential and proprietary business information. Accordingly, in addition to violating Demand Media?s intellectual property rights in the referenced materials, the postings are disruptive, damaging and harmful to our business practices and reputation.

The intellectual property claims seem totally unfounded. There’s no trademark claim. There’s no consumer confusion or dilution here at all. No one thinks that DSS is “endorsed” by Demand Media. The copyright claim is dubious. Looking at the blog post in question, I can’t see how it’s not fair use. It’s showing a single slide from a presentation that’s certainly relevant, and providing significant commentary on that slide.

The “damaging and harmful to our business practices and reputation” claims are also pretty dubious, though I guess there could be some random state law claims they’re thinking they could use here. But, I just don’t see it. Someone reporting critically on your business may be disruptive and damaging, but is not illegal. And, honestly, the slide presentation in question is hardly some giant corporate secret. The slide is so bland and pointless and corporatey, it doesn’t really give away anything.

Honestly, it’s hard to believe anyone thought it was a wise move to go after DSS this way. It just gets them more attention and makes Demand look petty and silly. It’s no surprise that the Forbes coverage of this story (the original link above) highlights that this happened at the same time as Demand’s valuation dropped under $1 billion for the first time….

Filed Under: blogs, critics, legal threats, sucks sites
Companies: demand media

Guy Who Runs Anti-Ryanair Website Forced To Hand Over The Domain Because He Made A Little Money

from the nominetsucks.co.uk? dept

For many years, we’ve discussed the legality of so-called “sucks sites.” These are, generally speaking, sites that people put up about a brand that they’ve had a bad experience with, that goes by something along the lines of brandsucks.com. While there has been some back and forth, for the most part, people and domain dispute boards have recognized that such “sucks sites” should be allowed. They’re not infringing on trademarks, in that they don’t, for the most part, lead to any confusion over who is running the domain, or if the company in question actually endorses the site (unlikely in most cases).

So it was interesting to see the news that a guy who ran IHateRyanair.co.uk was forced to turn over the domain name to the company. It was double surprising, because four years ago, we had written about another sucks site, called RyanairCampaign.org that was allowed to keep its domain. So what gives here? Well, it turns out that it wasn’t a normal domain resolution process that is normally used over domain trademark disputes. Instead, Ryanair went straight to the registry — which, in this case, was Nominet, and apparently Nominet’s policies are much more stringent. The company even admits this, saying that the traditional UDRP domain resolution process probably would have let him keep the domain, but they decided it offends their stricter policies. Why? Because on the page he had some affiliate links that earned him £322. And, even though he took down the links, and agreed to sign documents that he wouldn’t put them back, they still felt it violated their policies.

This is, frankly, ridiculous. Earning a little bit of cash from a website does not automatically make it such that it’s just being done “for the money,” as is implied by this ruling. Besides with the amount made, it probably didn’t do much more than covering hosting fees. This is really an unfortunate decision, and could certainly chill some forms of speech in making it much more difficult to cover your costs in hosting a public advocacy website against a company. Perhaps someone needs to set up Nominetsucks.co.uk. Of course, all is not lost for the original domain holder, who has simply moved his site to IHateRyanair.org, and hopefully to a less ridiculous registrar.

Filed Under: domains, sucks sites, trademarks
Companies: ryanair

Sucks Site Lawsuits Move To Include Facebook As Well

from the really? dept

We’ve covered how it’s a dumb idea for companies to sue so-called “sucks sites,” (sites that complain about a company). First, plaintiffs in such lawsuits almost never win. The trademark claims almost always fail. No one is confusing the sucks site with the company they complain about. Second, just bringing such a lawsuit tends to call significantly more attention to the complaints against the company (the ever popular “Streisand Effect”). And yet… they still keep on coming. The latest one has a bit of a twist, though. Rather than suing the owner of a website, the organization is suing the guy who set up a complaint group on Facebook. Other than that, though, the scenarios are basically the same. In this case, a beauty school student set up a Facebook group to complain about things happening at the school, and the school sued for both the use of the logo (trademark infringement) and on claims that many of the posts to the group were defamatory.

The trademark claim hopefully gets tossed aside quickly. No one’s going to confuse the group for being a part of the school, and it’s difficult to see how they’ll make a claim that the use was “in commerce.” The defamation claim really depends on what was said… but if it was said by other students, then it’s difficult to see how the student who started the group can be held liable for them. Besides, some courts at least have noted that online forums are the equivalent of a bunch of friends talking over drinks, and the speech should naturally be taken less seriously. One hopes that the judge in this case recognizes the nature of basic online conversations as well.

Filed Under: defamation, social networks, sucks sites, trademark
Companies: facebook