'Cybersquatters' make monitoring essential
By Erin LaRuffa
News Writer
Searching for the words "Notre Dame" on an Internet search engine will return numerous results including the University's official Web-site, sports-related sites and the sites of other schools with similar names.
Since these Web addresses are often similar to the official Notre Dame site, it is possible to confuse an unrelated site with the one related to the school. While most of the sites are harmless, Notre Dame and other colleges across the country are worried about the use of their trademarked names as domain names for Web-sites.
"There are ongoing efforts to enforce [Notre Dame] trademarks," said Larry Williams, Director of Licensing for the University. "We had always dealt with trademark infringement in other mediums."
Registering a domain name is relatively easy and inexpensive. Since domain names are meant to serve only as addresses for Web-sites, only one numeral or digit has to differ between two separate domain names. Companies that register names do not check for similarities between new addresses and existing ones.
People known as cybersquatters buy large quantities of domain names in hopes of selling the names later. Cybersquatters thus profit commercially from the names they register. Laws passed late in 1999 established financial penalties for cybersquatters who purposely exploited domain names.
Trademark owners, such as Notre Dame, are required to protect their trademarks, including uses which are "confusingly similar" to the trademark, said Williams. He added that if any trademark owner failed to prevent such uses, the owner would forfeit the rights to the trademark.
"We [at Notre Dame] don't mind if there's excitement about the sports programs," he said, referring to fan-based sites about the school's sports teams. The University does not mind most sites focusing on other University programs, either.
As with other colleges and universities, Notre Dame wants to prevent its name from being used in a disreputable manner.
"The University has a reputation that it holds near and dear, and it doesn't want its name used in anyway that would be demeaning to it," Williams said, adding that the University examines each use of its name on an individual basis.
The University would object to an unaffiliated site that used its name for profit through advertisements or sales. Using the University's name in relation to a site for pornography is another.
Although the University has gone to court in the past to protect its trademark from misuse in other mediums, it has not yet had to go to court because of a domain name. The University would seek legal action over a Web-site if such action became necessary, Williams said.
Monitoring the use of the Notre Dame name is difficult because there are infinite ways in which a name could be incorporated into a Web address. Notre Dame does its own monitoring and also relies on supporters such as alumni to report questionable usage.
Companies who pay money for the use of the Notre Dame trademark also alert the University to unauthorized use of the mark.
The first step in dealing with an objectionable domain name is to send a cease-and-desist letter to the person to whom the site is registered. Such a letter would request that the owner stop using the Notre Dame name and would also threaten a lawsuit. The University has taken this step, although Williams could not discuss details of those cases.
The next step after a cease-and-desist letter would be to receive a court injunction to stop the trademark usage. The University has not yet needed to take such an action.
Under new legislation to protect trademarked names from being used improperly for Internet addresses, Harvard University is currently suing a Web-site designer who registered over 60 Internet addresses containing the words "Harvard" or "Radcliffe." According to officials at Harvard, the man demanded money from the University, a claim the man denies.
Other schools have also faced problems. New York University, for instance, recently dealt with a site called nyudormcam.com that claimed to have video cameras in the University's dorm rooms. The site's owners agreed to change the name of their site and all other references to NYU before legal action was necessary.
All News Stories for Tuesday, February 1, 2000
