Dell is suing several "cybersquatting" companies
that buy and sell Web site addresses. The lawsuit alleges that the entities earned millions
of dollars from Internet traffic intended for Dell and dozens of other Fortune
500 companies.
According to the Washington Post, Dell took aim at a stable of registrars (companies that are licensed to register and sell new domain names to the public) alleging that they are responsible for registering and profiting off of nearly 1,100 domains that were "confusingly similar" to Dell's various trademarks.
This lawsuit concerns the type of cybersquatting commonly referred to as 'typosquatting'. Typosquatting is a form of cybersquatting which relies on mistakes such as typographical errors made by Internet users when inputting a website address into a web browser.
In the suit, Dell alleges that the companies in question constructed an elaborate chain of front businesses to profit from "domain tasting". Domain tasting is made possible by a policy established by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) which allows registrars have up to five days to sample domains before committing to purchase them.
According to one example cited in Dell's lawsuit, on May 25, 2007, DomainDoorman registered "dellfinacncialservices.com." On May 30, the registrar deleted the domain from its stable of Web site names. Minutes later, that same Web site name was snatched up by BelgiumDomains, which then dropped the name on June 4. That same day, dellfinacncialservices.com was grabbed by CapitolDomains, which in turn relinquished it on June 9, the same day that site was re-registered again by DomainDoorman.
The companies in question abused domain tasting by setting up a network that cycled infringing domain names from one registrar to the next in order to hold onto the domains indefinitely without ever paying for them while profiting from ads on the sites.
Dell has also filed counterfeiting charges against the registrars, a novel legal claim in a domain registration dispute, said Michael Froomkin, a law professor at the University of Miami. He said,
Under federal cybersquatting laws, they are able to get a maximum of $100,000 for an infringing domain name. However, under federal counterfeiting law, they might be able to get up to one million dollars per violation. It just make perfect sense to go for counterfeiting.I am not aware of a single case which argues as this one does that typosquatting is effectively a counterfeit. I suspect they're pushing the law here, maybe because counterfeit claims allow far greater statutory damages.
I am with Dell on this one. I doubt they'll be able to squeeze a counterfeiting charge because I do not see what's being counterfeited here but I do think Dell will win trademark and domain wise.
I personally loathe any form of cybersquatters and these companies just took it to a whole new level of abuse.
