Surprise, Surprise: E-Voting Glitches Found In Early Voting
Governator Wasting More CA Taxpayer Money On Unconstitutional Violent Video Game Ban
Is Google Liable For Typosquatting Domains That Use AdSense?
from the seems-like-a-stretch dept
Mon, Oct 27th 2008 1:43am — Mike Masnick
While I have tremendous respect for the ongoing work that Ben Edelman has done over the years exposing many of the dirty tricks used by spyware and adware vendors, I tend to disagree with his view on trademark law. In the past, Edelman sided with websites that sued early spyware vendors for putting up competing pop up ads, but that was missing the point. The real problem there was the fact that spyware was surreptitiously installed. If people wanted to see competitive ads, that should be their choice, and not a trademark issue. There's nothing wrong with competitors trying to get your attention if they know you're looking for a competitor's product. That's not a trademark law, so long as there's no attempt to confuse users into thinking that one product was made by someone else.
Edelman, however, disagrees. And, now, he's actually suing Google for allowing AdSense ads to be placed on "typosquatter" domains. This lawsuit seems like a longshot. As has been seen in numerous lawsuits over AdSense and trademarks, suing Google is trying to put liability on the wrong party. You could potentially sue the owner of the domain, but even that seems like a stretch. It's unlikely that anyone arriving at the typosquatted domain will be "confused" into believing they're at the correct site. They'll either quickly retype the URL properly, or they'll click on a link on the site that takes them to the proper site. There's no actual "confusion" here and it's difficult to see how there's any consumer harm. The fact that Google makes money off the practice shouldn't be seen as illegal at all.
Filed Under: ben edelman, lawsuits, trademark, typosquatting
Gibson Guitar Declares Shift In IP Enforcement After Most Recent Public Backlash
UMG Tries To Block O-Town's Trademark Application Over Its Motown Record Label
University Of Idaho Sends Cease And Desist Over Vandal Beer Business Name
Caterpillar Now Going After All The Cats For Trademark Cancellations
Tom Brady Attempts To Trademark The Nickname He Doesn't Even Want, That's Already Used By A Famous NY Met With Dementia
Anonymous Coward, 19 Aug 2009 @ 1:06am
you could probably fit the whole .com namespace on an average laptop, perhaps with .net or .org, but certainly not all TLD's
but, for the average user speaking 1-2 languages, addresses for every internet domain, worldwide, would not be necessary.
if you run your own caching DNS server (and/or maintain a hosts file) i think you'll find the number of unique sites you visit in a lifetime is not that many. you don't need terabytes or petrabytes to handle your name resolution needs.
Insider Shop - Show Your Support!
5.1 WIPO Now Gets Into The Extrajudicial, Zero Due Process, Censorship Act Over Sites It Declares 'Infringing'
An Economic Explanation For Why DRM Cannot Open Up New Business Model Opportunities