March 16, 2007 | Read Time: 1 minute
The American Red Cross has won a victory over a “typosquatter” — someone who used a variation on the group’s Web address to try to attract traffic, reports
Domain Dispute & Trademark Blog.
The National Arbitration Forum, an organization that rules on disputes outside of courtrooms, determined that the Red Cross could block the other operator from using the domain name redcrosss.org — identical to the Red Cross’s own address except for an additional “s” at the end.
People who spelled the Red Cross address with an extra “s” were directed to a site selling commercial products related to disaster relief.
The arbitration panel ruled that the operators of that site — identified only as “Ms MDM” — had no legitimate interest in using a “confusingly similar” domain name.
Ms MDM did not respond to the Red Cross’s complaint, but is bound by the decision because it agreed to follow certain dispute-resolution procedures when it registered for the domain name.
Domain Dispute & Trademark blog is written by Xavier Morales, a lawyer who specializes in domain-name, trademark, and copyright law.
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