Stolen Domain Names

[greendog]

I work in my family's business and I want to get a web site up and running.  However, someone has taken the domain names that are ideally suited to our company.
My parents have met with the person responsible and it appears they have done so deliberately.  They aren't using the domains; just holding them.
Is there any law against this?  Is there anything I can do about it? 

[Mattk]

it is not uncommon for domains to be purchased and not used.the guy would sell it to you but obviously at a higher cost than you would have got it for.

eg i register terminator4.com and hope they make another movie !

have you tried all alternatives ? ie .co.uk,.com,.net,.biz etc etc

[NetSquirrel]

If you haven't already tried it , there is also the option of putting a dash (-) in between words in the title, but at the cost of making it less easy to remember.

 

Surely owning such a number of web sites is costing this inconsiderate person money?  Perhaps if you go ahead with a less preferred domain name the person will give up and sell theirs to you, or they might cancel them or whatever it is you do. 

[chriswhyte]

might be a long shot but talk to the citizen advice centre i know it happened in ireland where a site was set up in a politicians name and it ended up in court. politician won his case of course and the site was shut down it now means names can not hi jacjed in ireland dont know what the story is in the uk

[stevie21]

Someone registered a name which resembled a trademark already owned by Marks & Spencer & lost it in court quite some time ago. I can't remember if it was marksandspencer.com or something similar like stmichaels.co.uk but corporate lawyers got their wicked way in the end.

[OBonio]

This sort of thing has been going on for years. People buy up domain names that will want to be used by somebody and sell it to them for a much inflated price. If you can prove they are using the domain to portray your company in a bad or defamatory way, then you could take it to court. If the person isn't doing anything with it, then they are not breaking the law at all.

[ian.miller]

Yes you can have domain names transferred to you in certain circumstances no matter who or why they bought it.

The difference is whether your are trying to get a domain thats related to a trademark or one thats simply "nice"

So you cant retrieve something general like "cheapdeals.com" but you could if it was "taylorsprinters.com" and you were called taylor and a printer and had it trademarked where as they were a cyber squatter.

Microsoft has one several of these kinda cases, as has many other companies. The main thing is that you need a shed loads of cash and patience.

As you say the domains were "ideally suited" rather than "our name" I think that you aren't talking trademarks so you probably don't have a hope other than find out how much they'll accept for them.

Or as people say, work around it with a similar, but different, name.

[greendog]

Great response everyone; thanks for the advice.

I pretty much guessed there wouldn�t be a lot I could do in this situation but I do however have some alternative domain names lined up.  Hopefully I can use one of these in the meantime and keep my fingers crossed that the d/name thief will eventually release the name/s I would really like to use.

I�m determined not to give-in and pay some over inflated ransom for the names.  I think this kind of scam is fair enough when targeting a large conglomerates and suchlike, but I feel it�s a bit unfair when they�re hitting the small independents.

[Phantaxus]

Would the person with your desired domain name be interested in helping you develop the site for your company? you could let them place their own advert somewhere on your site advertising theri design services. That way you are not paying them for the domain but they are getting paid for the design bit and getting free advertising as well.

[PatTheRat]

Domain names work more or less the same way as company names. However, I remember a case where a certain company got the law involved as the rogue website was a porn site, and would be harming their brand image. Also, regarding companies...some guy registered the company name '21st Century Fox' around 20 years ago. Thats why Fox cannot change their name... unless they pay out. I think the guy was looking $100 million for the registration of the name.