.com website versus .co.uk website Help!

[MatchAttax]

Does anyone know if i can set up a .co.uk domain (website) if someone else owns the .com ?

Because there is a domain name that i like which is available on .co.uk but has been taken on .com .

Please help

Thanks

[engine]

Welcome to WebmasterWorld MatchAttax.

Of course, you can, but, do some research first. Is the owner of the .com a trademark? Are they an interentational company with offices or an ambition to get into the UK?

[MatchAttax]

All i know from going on there website is that they just have a load of sponsored listings on there with link to other websites.

They dont look like there a big company ?

Thanks

[shobhit]

If you have intention to harm .com owners reputation, then I think there should be no problem.
Though, big companies usually take away domain names from the newer owners giving them some legal threats.
In your case I dont think there should be any problem. :)

Just my two cents. ^_^

[HuskyPup]

They dont look like there a big company ?

Don't assume anything by size!

Does anyone know if i can set up a .co.uk domain (website) if someone else owns the .com ?

Of course you can so long as you do not purport to be the UK site of the .com therefore is the .com a UK company and are you intending to sell the same products as the .com?

UK company law can be strangely too simple at times and especially so with trading names for the self-employed therefore it would be wise to check precisely the trading status and geographic base of the .com

There are loads of instances whereby example.com example.co.uk example.de example.whatever all function quite happily in their own countries but be careful of falling foul of trademarks etc. It shouldn't be very difficult to find out this information.

[binoyxj]

I always have this fear in mind while choosing domain names. So, what if tomorrow a company decides to grab our domain? Can they do that :(

[HuskyPup]

I always have this fear in mind while choosing domain names. So, what if tomorrow a company decides to grab our domain? Can they do that :(

Well, it's 2010, if a company hasn't got its act together by now and bought the domain names it requires it probably never will do!

Saying that you have to be careful of "passing yourself off" to being that specific company when buying the non TLD names.

For example with my company name I own example.com/info/biz/asia/com.br/cn/de/in/mobi/tel/us yet someone else managed to grab .eu and has never done a thing with it HOWEVER if they were to and try and pass themselves off as my business they would know about it very quickly.

If they were to trade as example.eu in a totally different line of business, like most names are now, then no harm done however don't try and kid yourself by buying a registered trademark, even a non-global one, and imagine you may get away with it unless you can demonstrate a prior and valid usage.

For popular names I suggest to customers to consider their business or trading name plus the town so for a popularly named hotel say exampletown.co.uk. I have one customer like this and there are, believe this or not, a minimum 150 hotels with their unique exampletown.co.uk, it works well.

[binoyxj]

Thank you for prompt and detailed reply. Hope my new domain <snip> won't have any probs :)

[edited by: engine at 5:09 pm (utc) on Jun 9, 2010]
[edit reason] see TOS [/edit]