Forum Moderators: phranque
I have a very substansial website for my business up and running for a couple of years now and its going really well, bringing in lots of business purely because of the quality of the site and the service we provide speaks volumes. The problem is that a competitor in the same line of business as ourselves has started up a site recently and has created a url that is the exact same as ours bar 2 letters..
eg, mine is www.****$$$$$$**$$$$$$$$.com and the url they have used to redirect to their site is..
www.****$$$$$$ $$$$$$$$.com
the two missing letters in the middle is "of" which they have left out but apart from that both urls are the same.. which is a bit of a bitch on my end because they are trying to cash in on all my hard work over the last couple of years in trying to gain business.
I was wondering firstly is it legal to do this? there is in fact nothing really wrong with it i suppose as both urls are completly independant, but as you can imagine if you were me you be a little p***ed of with it.
Is there any way of perhaps getting there website banned in the extreme end i know or is there any way i can stop this particular url from working for them.
I hope someone with a little more experience can help me out on this, I thought id ask first and shoot later as they dont know i know they have done this..
Thanks for taking the time to read this .. cheers.
They bought a domain name and set up a site, just like you did. Unless they have stolen your copyrighted content, then they haven't done anything illegal.
There is nothing you can do.
There might be something you can do.
This sounds more like a trademark issue than a copyright issue - unless they've somehow gained control of your domain and have physically redirected it to their domain.
Your post title "How to stop a competitor from stealing my url and redirecting to their site" is a little unclear in that regard. Perhaps a better title would be: A competitor registered an almost identical domain; "How to stop a direct competitor stealing my business by passing off their company as mine"
If your company name is trademarked, you may want to consult with a lawyer about 'passing off'.
This sounds more like a trademark issue than a copyright issue
Good point about trademark. Since this was posted in the AdSense forum my mind jumped to possible content theft.
If the competitor is actually trying to directly compete with you in your line of business, I would be more concerned. If you figure that they are causing you a lot of damage (or may in the future), I would definitely check with a lawyer - especially if you are developing a business which is substantial enough to justify some legal expenses.
The point about "passing off" is well taken. "Passing off" is a tort which can be used to enforce a trademark even if it is unregistered.
Always, ALWAYS buy as many TDLs for your site and as many URLs that you can. Domain registration is so cheap and absolutely worth not having to fight the problem you have right now. Oh, and don't forget to investigate hyphenated versions of your URLs.
