LOL, eBay mailed me about a domain I regged.
 

I generated some domainnames and regged them the other day.
pembay.info wasn't the real name but it was very similar, not one letter related to ebay except "bay".

Today I receive this bullshit:

It has recently come to our attention that you have registered a domain name that mimics the famous eBay name and trademark and are currently operating a web site under that domain name. As you are likely aware, the coined term ?eBay? is one of the most distinctive and famous brands in the world. eBay enjoys broad trademark rights, which are registered as a trademark and protected in the United States and many countries around the world.

We are concerned that your registration and use of the domain name pembay.info infringes and/or dilutes the distinctive eBay trademark. Infringement occurs when someone, without authorization, uses a trademark that is identical or confusingly similar to a trademark owned by someone else. Trademark infringement occurs when this unauthorized use confuses consumers to falsely believe that the two parties are related to one-another, or that the true trademark owner is either endorsing or sponsoring the activities of the infringer. Trademark dilution occurs when the unauthorized use is likely to lessen the distinctiveness of the true trademark owner?s famous trademark.

Your use of ?bay? in your domain name is likely to confuse consumers and/or lessen the distinctiveness of the famous eBay brand. ?eBay? is a fanciful trademark. Neither ?eBay? nor ?bay? describes online trading or e-commerce in any way. Therefore, it is likely that you chose your domain name because of eBay?s famous brand and to capitalize on the goodwill associated with that brand and this is a problem.
Federal and state laws, including the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act of 1999, provide for serious penalties (up to $100,000) against persons who, without authorization, use, sell, or offer for sale a domain name that infringes or dilutes another?s trademark. Infringers who have been notified that their use is infringing, but do not cease, may also be considered ?willful? and could be subject to additional money damages and liability for attorney?s fees. Having received this email, you are on such notice.

eBay diligently protects its famous brand through legal proceedings, and courts and trademark offices have ruled on many occasions that the use of ?bay? as you are using it violates eBay?s rights. For example, in November 2007 the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit cited evidence that ?the use of a generic word plus ?bay?? ? as you are doing ? ?would lessen the distinctiveness of eBay?s trademark,? and held that such a name and associated domain names both infringed and diluted eBay?s mark in violation of applicable law.
In addition to court and trademark office cases, we have filed numerous successful cybersquatting complaints with the World Intellectual Property Organization?s arbitration panel against domain names that infringed the eBay mark and have succeeded in all those matters.

While eBay respects your right of expression and your desire to conduct business on the World Wide Web, eBay must enforce its own rights in order to protect its valuable and famous name. We appreciate that you may have registered pembay.info without full knowledge of the law in this area. Nonetheless, under the circumstances, we must insist that you immediately stop using the domain name for any purpose, not sell, transfer, or offer to sell the domain name to any other person, and simply let the domain name registration expire. In the meantime, the domain should be inactive and should not point to any content.

Just to be clear, eBay does not desire to interfere with any legitimate business you may be conducting. We are simply asking that you offer those legitimate services under a name, mark and domain name that is not likely to confuse consumers to believe that your company on one hand and eBay on the other hand are related and/or affiliated.

Please reply to this email and confirm that you will comply as requested. If we do not receive this confirming email, we will have no choice but to escalate this further and take whatever action that may be required to protect eBay's trademark rights.

Thank you for your anticipated cooperation.

Sincerely,
Edith
eBay Legal Department

you're going to jail.

say hello to bubba.

how dare you

Must be automated mail

you're going to end up featured on rapedinprisonbay.com...

So, what was the domain you registered?

Tell them 'bay' is actually a term for an area of water mostly surrounded by land. Bays generally have calmer waters than the surrounding sea, due to the surrounding land blocking some waves and often reducing winds. Bays also exist as an inlet in a lake or pond. A large bay may be called a gulf, a sea, a sound, or a bight. A cove is a circular or oval coastal inlet with a narrow entrance; some coves may be referred to as bays.

You're fucked.

Will they sue this guy to ????



na, he's dead .. but his estate could sue eBay ... :1orglaugh:1orglaugh

I don't see how they can demand you stop using it for any purpose when their trademark eBay is granted purely for "Providing sweepstakes, games of chance and contests via the internet."

IANAL

Problem solved. I mailed them back and told them that they're cunts. :thumbsup

anything with a bay in it, where you are running an ecommerce site...they will try to take

that's egay.

Pembrokeshire Bay
http://www.pemcoastphotos.com/photo_8078379.html

You should've sent them this pic:

http://www.knight3d.com/dimp/Care.jpg

It is pretty hard to say whether they have a case without knowing the actual domain but it certainly sounds like total bullshit.

Tell them this:

Figure out the dollar amount you will have to pay your team of lawyers to file the suit against me and add all administrative costs that will be incurred, etc.

Now subtract 10%

Write me a check for that amount.

Domain's yours

they are so full of themselves..."famous name" maybe a good 4 letter domain, thats about it.

You can maybe sue them for harassment and them trying to bully you for your domain. You can search this online. Many companies think because they have an endless amount of money they can do what they want. If your running an auction or eCommerce website then it helps their case. If so they have already copied your website for future legal action.

LAWL, this is brilliant :thumbsup

What if you bought a completely different domain and made your commerce site on that, then made the current site into a blog whose posts linked to your store? Could you still get in trouble for that? Add some banners, etc. in that mofo, lol.

Good luck with it. Hope you don't get sued.

Way to go. I would have told them to Go Fuck Themselves.

forward to EFF, their lawyers always have fun responses to overreaching asshat attorneys.

:1orglaugh :1orglaugh

I got one of those also. something like girlstubehub.com I justdeleted the domain. but it pissed me off. its not even stubhub

Ruh Roh! I guess the band Breaking Benjamin needs to hand their website over to ebay:

http://www.shallowbay.com/


:winkwink:

The email was just signed as "Edith" ? Bet it's a script that checks zone files for newly registered domains.

Send a reply using the 2 quotes above (arrange and word it accordingly) and ask them to explain to you how anybody could possibly type pembay.info into their browser when they actually meant to to type ebay.com, or confuse the two domains.

Its just their lawyers justifying their job.

Last trademark I filed was the logo for our real estate company. Since the logo had red and blue in it and was a box, RE/MAX lawyers overnighted a letter saying they were monitoring the mark application but choosing not to file a claim at the time.

Mark was approved for registration and never heard from them again.

That's an automatic arbitration win for them, actually.

Also large companies get bragging rights for saying "We spend X amount of money a year defending our trademarks" so likely the money's already budgeted and they're looking for targets to sue

I have heard that in order for them to win real cases they have to show a history of vigorously defending their trademark, so likely this email is just to show a history of being concerned.

Not that they won't sue you for the same reason, but the goal may not be to win, it may simply be to show a history of taking action.

I?m not a lawyer but do have some knowledge in domain name disputes and in my opinion you are NOT infringing on their trademark, unless you?re running an auction site.

If they were so concerned about their name they never should have used ?Bay? in it from the get go because Bay is a generic word. Maybe the town of Green Bay should sue them.

Also a person is entitled to use their real birth name for business purposes, so does that mean John Bay can no longer do business under his name?

If they really feel they have grounds against you for damaging their trademark the next move would be to serve you with a TRO (Temporary Restraining Order)

Not that they can?t just institute legal proceedings against you, of course they can but
that could take years to resolve.

Your decision has to be is it all really worth it?

Wonder if they sent the same letter to Piratebay

TampaBay

Or any other site using that

it's just an automated thing. a bot scans urls and sends out boilerplate legal threats. i've got them from a few places. they wont even reply.

they own the word "bay"? sounds capitalistic and monopolist shit