One of the most popular pieces of advice dished out when a person is looking to start a blog is to buy the domain name. While this is certainly a solid tip, the part that is often left out is the old ‘Caveat emptor,’ or ‘buyer beware.’
According to the The National Arbitration Forum, a dispute resolution service used by the Internet Corporation of Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), the number of domain name disputes are on the rise, totaling close to 2,000 in 2007.
Often what happens is that a domain name is registered and then abused by a party who cannot claim legitimate rights to it.
As you can imagine, the majority of cases revolved around .com, ,net and .org domain names.
The National Arbitration Forum has been around since 1999, and since then, they’ve heard close to 10,000 domain name complaints. Among the cases they’ve been involved with include Disney, Hershey’s Kisses, Jimmy Buffett and Univision, to name a few.
Click here to file a claim. It might be a headache, but anything is better than the time and expense of the court system.
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Your “click here” link is bad, add the http:// to the front of the href.
I just blogged about this issue yesterday. Is it worth $1,300 to file a complaint; or should I simply rebrand my existing site? More details at http://www.planetmike.com/goto/675
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It’s always best to get the advice of an experienced lawyer. Thanks for the article.