NEED some INFORMATION/KNOWLEDGE of Internet Legalities

My business is a DBA, Hub Cap Annie. Here's the question.

My competitor is hubcaps.org/com, well he's everyone's competition, years ago he was smart I wasn't, that's a different story. When I google hub cap annie the first thing that pops up is an AD that reads hub cap annie-hubcaps.org, is this legal? I know the internet has different laws so to speak then the real world but IMO this seems illegal.

Before I make my attorney research this I was curious if anyone here has knowledge of this.

Thanks

Yes it's legal, but it must be clearly labelled as paid advertising, and all the search sites abide by this because it's heavily policed by the FTC. Organic results show up below the paid search ads.

All industries do this to capture in-market eyeballs.

pronstar said:

Yes it's legal, but it must be clearly labelled as paid advertising, and all the search sites abide by this because it's heavily policed by the FTC. Organic results show up below the paid search ads.

All industries do this to capture in-market eyeballs.

Click to expand...

It is clear and kinda what I thought but it sure seems like BULLSHIT to me. He's giving the impression we are associated.

PVHCA said:

My business is a DBA, Hub Cap Annie. Here's the question.

My competitor is hubcaps.org/com, well he's everyone's competition, years ago he was smart I wasn't, that's a different story. When I google hub cap annie the first thing that pops up is an AD that reads hub cap annie-hubcaps.org, is this legal? I know the internet has different laws so to speak then the real world but IMO this seems illegal.

Before I make my attorney research this I was curious if anyone here has knowledge of this.

Thanks

Click to expand...

It's pretty unfortunate that this has happened to you. Unless you give them a call and somehow you can get them to sell you the url. I think your swimming upriver.

you can however, find loopholes, misspellings that would include your URL or your competitors. Now, do I think it's morally correct to use your competitors? not at all. I don't condone it.

Like yours, my industry is "cut throat", competitors will do anything to get a client, buying up URL's with misspellings, singular names over plural names.


A lot of large internet companies will do this even before the launch of their website just to cover their rears.

Raffit78 said:

It's pretty unfortunate that this has happened to you. Unless you give them a call and somehow you can get them to sell you the url. I think your swimming upriver.

you can however, find loopholes, misspellings that would include your URL or your competitors. Now, do I think it's morally correct to use your competitors? not at all. I don't condone it.

Like yours, my industry is "cut throat", competitors will do anything to get a client, buying up URL's with misspellings, singular names over plural names.


A lot of large internet companies will do this even before the launch of their website just to cover their rears.

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I've got to find out who owns the url, I assumed the hub cap annie in Ohio owned it because they are hubcapannie.com. My ex-MIL and aunt own the naming rights and trademark but each store is independent since the mid 90's.

You could try to "outbid the hits" with a google add.

PVHCA said:

I've got to find out who owns the url, I assumed the hub cap annie in Ohio owned it because they are hubcapannie.com. My ex-MIL and aunt own the naming rights and trademark but each store is independent since the mid 90's.

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You can hire a broker that can do that. One of the more famous hosting companies has that as an option when trying to chose a url. Give that a try. You might get lucky.

Can you believe that this is an actual business? I know some folks up in Canada and all they do is literally buy up URL's to wait for a bid and turn around and sell for HUGE profits. There's a business for everything, i guess. :rolleyes

PVHCA said:

I've got to find out who owns the url, I assumed the hub cap annie in Ohio owned it because they are hubcapannie.com. My ex-MIL and aunt own the naming rights and trademark but each store is independent since the mid 90's.

Click to expand...

geektools.com then click on the whois tab

Send a cease and desist and try and scare him. While doing so create a few url's and start some paid advertising through Google. Out market him!

Maybe even figure out the demographic that purchases your product and do some Facebook marketing as it's cheap.

annie-hubcaps.org is not actually the domain name that he is registering.. its just obfuscated to open his domain hubcaps.org

You could just go cock block him for 50 bucks and save the lawyer fees....

YES! YOUR DOMAIN IS AVAILABLE. BUY IT BEFORE SOMEONE ELSE DOES.
annie-hubcaps.org
SELECT$17.99* $7.99*
annie-hubcaps.us Targeting Local shoppers? Add this: $1.00
Get 3 and Save 67% SELECT$48.97* $16.00*
annie-hubcaps.com
annie-hubcaps.net
annie-hubcaps.info

Admin Name:Mefferd, Rick
Admin Organization:Hubcaps.com
Admin Street: 5611 Kimball Court
Admin City:Chino
Admin State/Province:CA
Admin Postal Code:91710
Admin Country:US
Admin Phone:+1.9095972600
Admin Phone Ext:
Admin Fax:
Admin Fax Ext:
Admin Email:[email protected]
Tech ID:TNTN-0000431964
Tech Name:Mefferd, Rick
Tech Organization:Hubcaps.com
Tech Street: 5611 Kimball Court
Tech City:Chino
Tech State/Province:CA
Tech Postal Code:91710
Tech Country:US
Tech Phone:+1.9095972600
Tech Phone Ext:
Tech Fax:
Tech Fax Ext:
Tech Email:[email protected]
Name Server:NS2.HUBCAPS.COM
Name Server:NS1.HUBCAPS.COM

Your ex-MIL, if she trademarked hub cap Annie would be in a better position to pursue this.

what's this about?

http://www.denverpost.com/ci_18591413

Mandelon said:

what's this about?

http://www.denverpost.com/ci_18591413

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Hopefully drama and intrigue the likes of which we haven't seen since the OCM threads slowed down

LuauLounge said:

Your ex-MIL, if she trademarked hub cap Annie would be in a better position to pursue this.

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I agree, especially if a mark is already in place.

I think trademarks for names will be more common in the very near future since there are so many domain name extensions coming online. Soon, it will be too costly or even time consuming to keep up with competitors trying to jack your trade name by creating similarly named wesbsites. A trademarked name can help solve that, at least in theory.

I'll be looking to do the same, there's just too much to keep up with.

There's not much you can do about ranking above paid ads, but on an organic search, his .org site still ranks better, You can work on that part of it.

Keep in mind, the biggest change to Google search algorithm took place in April of this year - if you website is not optimized for mobile phones, then your website is penalized when people search with a phone. That in itself can chnag ethe tide; create a mobile friendly website.

Also, you can add a subdomain to your name, like, annies.hubcapsandwheels.com.

Start researching it out, remember, nonody is going to search for "Annies Hub Caps", they are looking for "hub caps" and Google will already limite their results to the local area first.

What about HubCapsSux.com?

Chino?

Really Godfather?

That problem seems easy to solve to me.

Mandelon said:

what's this about?

http://www.denverpost.com/ci_18591413

Click to expand...

pronstar said:

Hopefully drama and intrigue the likes of which we haven't seen since the OCM threads slowed down

Click to expand...

That's a whole other story. Jane Withers originally bought her franchise for Seattle from Aunt Nancy, her and her husband decided to sell the Seattle store and re-locate to Denver, that's when this "quack" decided to become "The OG Hub Cap Annie". She did well for herself, convinced the big newspapers she was the OG, called out my Aunt and Ex-MIL, started bashing them on TV programs etc etc. Well the condensed story is she got hit by the "Karma Train". Her and her husband got caught stealing hubcaps and centers at the old Mile High Stadium during Bronco games, she got busted for abusing and selling prescription meds., and pretty much ate shit until she basically gave away her store. She's a nut job with ZERO rights to anything Hub Cap Annie related.

I'm just gonna stick it out until I hit "lotto" and then it's all good from there, LOL

So last night went to see my attorney, he will be sending a cease and desist letter ASAP to hubcaps.com/org, when you have a DBA it protects your name even on the internet. We'll see how this JackAss responds, IMO he'll delete this add deal. I'll report back when it's finalized.

I still think you need to spend some money on an SEO/website guy, you can outrank him. Right now you can buy a similar name for .99 :eek

Check your PM

Good luck :thumbsup

Nissan has been fighting this guy for decades:
http://nissan.com/

A guy that does search engine optimization will give you advice on how to beat this guy in the search wars. You don't need to hire the smartest guy on the internet, either. Most of those geeks know how to get you at the top of the list.

I think Google and other search websites will pull down infringement ads if they are notified. The SEO will tell you how to go about doing that.

PVHCA said:

So last night went to see my attorney, he will be sending a cease and desist letter ASAP to hubcaps.com/org, when you have a DBA it protects your name even on the internet. We'll see how this JackAss responds, IMO he'll delete this add deal. I'll report back when it's finalized.

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So I visited my attorney back in Feb 2016 for some matters, one being my competitor using my name in his google add, the letter was sent and he has taken down all adds and any references to my company used by his company. He and his attorney both apologized and blamed Google, LOL. My attorney politely warned them of future litigation if "google" makes the same mistake, LOL

problem solved.