Damage to a brand’s e-reputation

Websites regularly criticize brands on the Internet. Disgruntled customers, former employees, civil society: many people have negative opinions about a company, sometimes legitimately. Domain names are used to damage a brand’s e-reputation by associating it with negative terms and/or critical content.

Freedom of expression

In disputes involving hostile domain names, the legitimate interest of the domain name holder may be upheld when he or she expresses criticism of the products marketed by the trademark, without the remarks made constituting a manifest outburst of freedom of expression, as in the UDRP decision smartbox-arnaque.com.

In the jeboycottedanone.com case, freedom of expression was also upheld. The website clearly denounced Danone’s social practices in 2001 and the risks to employment, without misleading the public as to the identity of the authors of the communication.

“Suck case

The use of pejorative terms in the writing of critical domain names is widely appreciated by experts. Many believe that words like “sucks” are sufficiently negative that the Internet user cannot doubt that it is an unfavorable site, as was the case in the UDRP for the domain name croisieuropesucks.com. New Internet extensions, such as .SUCKS, are even dedicated to the creation of brand-unfriendly content.

Legitimate use to be proven

SFR was able to recover the negative domain name sfr-arnaque.com, arguing that Internet users can legitimately wonder where this site comes from and whether it is indeed an SFR site intended to identify scams that could be carried out against SFR.

The absence of use of the disputed domain names does not deprive their holder of a legitimate interest. In out-of-court proceedings concerning the domain names mma-prejudice-moral-economique.com, mma-zero-blabla-publicite-mensongere.com and mma-zero-tracas-publicite-mensongere.com, the expert found that, despite the absence of use, there was nothing to suggest that they would not eventually be used in due form to express dissatisfaction with MMA within the law.

The behavior of the domain name holder is also examined. In a dispute concerning Internet addresses affaire-mediator.com, affaire-servier.com, jacques-servier.com, jacquesservier.com, laboratoires-servier.com, medicament-mediator.com, scandale-mediator.com, servier.mobi and servier.telthe owner of the domain names claimed the creation of ” numerous websites where Internet users can discuss a wide range of topical issues “while proposing to conclude a deal with Laboratoires Servier”. a commercial agreement for the rental of registered domain names for a total annual amount of €6,000 per domain name “because the more media coverage the subject receives, the more expensive domain names will be to rent or sell “. His response was considered bad faith.

Solidnames’ daily monitoring enables companies to be alerted as soon as a critical domain name is registered, whether it is identical to a trademark, contains pejorative terms or is similar to a trademark (typosquatting).

Solidnames’ SecURL service alerts users to changes in web usage of sensitive names. A potentially hostile domain name (e.g. boycott-brand.com) moving from a registrar’s holding page to a negative site will be immediately flagged.

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