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Domain name legality


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This is not legal advice because I have no knowledge of any relevant facts and no means to make any professional assessment of your circumstances.

 

However, I am comfortable saying that 'yes, there could be a very big problem'. Depending upon the size of the company and the state and, crucially, what you say, they might have a cause of action in defamation. Again, subject to what you say, it is not uncommon to assert misleading and deceptive conduct claims alongside defamation claims. Additionally, the fact that you'd have taken domain names similar to theirs, you're opening yourself up to risk on that front as well - i.e. misleading and deceptive conduct in nature of passing off. Oh, and then there's tortious passing off.

 

Again, none of this is legal advice and it will depend on what you say, but what a Court would decide is hardly the point. The real point is that they can assert some of the things from the above list, through the mouth of competent lawyers and make your life very unpleasant, irrespective of whether you ultimately prevail.

 

To voluntarily engage in legal disputes or provoke legal disputes you need to have really deep pockets, be desparate or be crazy (or all).

 

Edit: For completeness, I don't know who advised your American friends but I doubt that there's nothing they can do. Whether it's worth doing is another matter. In fact, there are fairly simple dispute resolution mechanisms through AuDA that might be able to strip registrants of deceptively similar .au domains.

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Good to know. Like I say, I would use only photos of their work and an accurate description of the events. I would also not pretend to be them on the sites, but only show the level of their (in)competence

 

If there's any chance of legal problems, I will stick to putting up the same info on my own website, so dannygalaga.com/shabbytradies

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Again, there's the same issues with that - except in relation to the passing off stuff. Words like shabby and dodgy are pretty loaded. If you think these people might have the money and wherewithall to get legal representation, you'd be better off leaving it alone.

 

In fact, why not sue them?

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Shabby was my mock name so I don’t use their real

Name in this post. I take your point about the domain names. But on my own site I will only be posting pictures of our place and an accurate description of the problems we have. I will have the same text in any online review places just that you normally can’t attach photos there.

 

To relate facts is a fundamental freedom. For instance, they sent us a claim on a Tuesday and we payed it on Thursday . They sent us the next claim on Friday and within HOURS they were calling demanding payment! That day and that weekend we had something like ten calls, and seventeen txts. When my partner told them

To stop calling they got there wives to call and text on different numbers. That is a fact and it is certainty my right to say it. We also learnt from qbcc that the licences they issue have a points system similar to a driving licence. They have lost 12 out of 30 points on their licence in the last year or so. That is also a fact which i can freely divulge. And of course photos of our own property are facts.

 

Because of their behaviour I suspect they don’t have a lot of cashflow, but nor do we so litigation is probably out.

 

I’ll definately take your advice and leave the domains alone. Unless I get legal advice to the contrary your feelings on that plan make sense. Pity, I was rubbing my hands with glee when I found out the price and availability of the domains :evil

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Report to QBCC if the work's shit. Make it 13 points lol.

 

It's funny, I would not take my own advice when I'm pissed off about something (although I probably couldn't be asked doing something sophisticated like a webpage!).

 

Good luck.

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Shabby was my mock name so I don’t use their real

Name in this post. I take your point about the domain names. But on my own site I will only be posting pictures of our place and an accurate description of the problems we have. I will have the same text in any online review places just that you normally can’t attach photos there.

 

To relate facts is a fundamental freedom. For instance, they sent us a claim on a Tuesday and we payed it on Thursday . They sent us the next claim on Friday and within HOURS they were calling demanding payment! That day and that weekend we had something like ten calls, and seventeen txts. When my partner told them

To stop calling they got there wives to call and text on different numbers. That is a fact and it is certainty my right to say it. We also learnt from qbcc that the licences they issue have a points system similar to a driving licence. They have lost 12 out of 30 points on their licence in the last year or so. That is also a fact which i can freely divulge. And of course photos of our own property are facts.

 

Because of their behaviour I suspect they don’t have a lot of cashflow, but nor do we so litigation is probably out.

 

I’ll definately take your advice and leave the domains alone. Unless I get legal advice to the contrary your feelings on that plan make sense. Pity, I was rubbing my hands with glee when I found out the price and availability of the domains :evil

C'mon

Time to Name and Shame them...

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Buyer and seller feedback sub forum.

 

doesnt matter if you put it in the cake making forum ... puting a post up saying acme building is shoddy and then the site is liable.

travis gets takedown notices that make him rightly angry and it draws attention to dannys plot for revenge ( that was a terrible idea)

 

dumb thing to do..

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Let's call them shabbytradies.com.au and shabbytradiesforhire.com.au. I searched the same domain names as just .com and they are free and cheap.

 

Read first post again.

 

I did ;)

 

- - - Updated - - -

 

Can you setup the .com's in a bogus name..?

 

You can purchase a Privacy Protection service if your registrar offers it. But if he's going to host photo's then it may be easy for them to know who he is. ;)

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Yeah to be clear, they have .com.au domains, my thought was to register .com domains with the same names. Since someone who was clearly conducting illegal activities seems to be able to do it (the shop I got burnt by, not my shabby tradies), my thought was it must be ok for me to do something similar with the domains.
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Hmmm, maybe what I first imagined is correct after all:

 

As the Trade Mark Owner of a Registered, Australian Trade Mark, your protection extends to all .au website domain names. You can complain to the .au Domain Administration Ltd (auDA), the policy authority and industry self-regulatory statutory body, who will take action to either:

 

Cancel the Website Domain Name; or

Transfer the Website Domain Name from the Registrant to the Trade Mark Owner.

However, this excludes .com, .net, or .org email extensions. You must be the Trade Mark Owner of a Registered, International Trade Mark, in order to have your protection extend to these Website Domain Names. For example, the WIPO Madrid Protocol is a convenient, efficient system to register your International Trade Marks. Then, you can complain to the ICANN Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) who can provide similar remedies.

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Yeah, auDa only has control of .au and everything under it. Same way the .uk mob have control of .uk, etc. The gTLDs (.com, .net, etc) are far less controlled since they were deregulated in the early 2000s.

 

That said, typosquatting is generally frowned upon and will likely land you in trouble.

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Yeah, auDa only has control of .au and everything under it. Same way the .uk mob have control of .uk, etc. The gTLDs (.com, .net, etc) are far less controlled since they were deregulated in the early 2000s.

 

That said, typosquatting is generally frowned upon and will likely land you in trouble.

 

I had to google that! So I'm learning all sorts of things :D

 

What I would be doing isn't typo squatting, since I'm not relying on typos. I would just be doing it to make sure my sites appear before there's in a google search (or gooogle search :D ) . On my site, it would clearly state that it is a place for us to display photos and facts about my shabbie tradies.

 

Oh, from wiki:

 

To express an opinion that is different from the intended website's opinion

 

hmmm...

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You can definitely guard yourself when buying .com domains. I've tried to tried sue people in relation to .com websites and it is really difficult to achieve from Australia. The starting point of all hosting companies is 'get rekt' and they're pretty immune to being told that they're breaking.

 

It's a lot like the vpn market. Find you low down dodgiest company that is most hostile to law enforcement and then use them lol.

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These people know where you live don’t forget

 

Hehe. They actually don't right now. But point taken, in a year or so when we can actually afford a deposit to build the house (they reamed an extra ten grand out of us for the landscaping) then they will know where we live :D

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