Is it legal to buy a domain name when it becomes available and to then forward that domain?

Question

I am not sure how this works legally. If someone were to buy a domain after it had expired and the renew period had ended and the original owner had not renewed could a competing business then legally forward traffic to their own site after buying the domain? In this case the domain is the name of the other business.

Answer 1

In short, you cannot use another's trademark or a confusingly similar variant in order to forward traffic to your site.

Domain disputes are generally handled under the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP). While the UDRP is relatively new, the number of decisions is pretty substantial and the case law is pretty well developed for most common disputes.

Decided cases can be searched at the link below.

http://www.udrpinfo.com/dcsn.php

As an example, look at the case below. Someone registered 11 domain names found confusingly similar to JP Morgan's trademarks. All 11 domain names were transferred from the registrant to JP Morgan.

http://www.wipo.int/amc/en/domains/decisions/html/2001/d2001-0385.html

Answer 2

The law here is still not very well developed. There is nothing illegal there. However, the owner of the business may have a infringement case against the competitor using their name. If this is an actual issue, a lawyer should be hired.

Answer 3

The Internet Comittee for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) would allow it until the original owner complained. There have been enough cases brought tfor resolution where the name was transferred back to the original owner.

Answer 4

Just do it. If they neglected a very important part of their business for so long as to let it expire, then they have no legal standing to claim they own it. Simply forward it.