by Traverse Legal, reviewed by Enrico Schaefer - February 12, 2012 - g. Trademark Typosquatting Under Anti-Cybersquatting Act
Stealing Whitney's Houston's legacy web traffic: Cybersquatting is when you register someones trademark, company name, brand or personal name withe the bad faith intent to profit from their mark or fame. Many cybersquatters register typographical variations of the persons trademark or name in order to take advantage of the people who mistype the domain name when entering it into the browser address bar. As a celebrity gets more popular, their web traffic goes up, as does traffic on the typo-domains. One of the true tragedies is that these illegal domain names are most profitable when someone famous dies and a spike in their web site Internet traffic brings big increases in revenue. Check our some of these cybersquatted domains on www.whitneyhouston.com and Whitney Houston's celebrity status. Not unlike many agents, talent agencies and recording companies, Sony Records appears to have done little to protect Whitney Houston from cybersquatters:
Domain name disputes come in various forms. A stolen domain name is one thing. Cybersquatting a celebrity domain name never seems as nefarious as when that celebrity dies. RIP Whitney Houston. Your legacy lives in many forms, but nowhere as permanent as the internet and world wide web.
As a founding partner of Traverse Legal, PLC, he has more than thirty years of experience as an attorney for both established companies and emerging start-ups. His extensive experience includes navigating technology law matters and complex litigation throughout the United States.
This page has been written, edited, and reviewed by a team of legal writers following our comprehensive editorial guidelines. This page was approved by attorney Enrico Schaefer, who has more than 20 years of legal experience as a practicing Business, IP, and Technology Law litigation attorney.
