Cybersquatting on Social Networks - Register Your Trademarks Today!

In lay person's terms, cybersquatting is the use of a domain name that infringes another's trademark rights.

An example: Company C has federally protected rights (read, a registered federal trademark) in the words "Coca Cola," and Company B abusively registers an Internet domain name, cocacola.net. Here, trademark infringement creates the likelihood that consumers will be confused as to the source of Company C's goods and services. In this example, a consumer may visit the cocacola.net Web site where she or he expects to see information about how to buy Coca-Cola beverages and other products. This confusion harms the federally-protected Coca Cola brand.

There is more to cybersquatting and trademark infringement, of course, but these are the basic ideas behind the federal Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act and trademark protection generally. (Here's a USPTO backgrounder in its Report to Congress on the ACPA.)

Enter Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace, and other social networking sites.

A concern has developed where users may be creating social networking profiles with "names" that may cybersquat on others' protected brands.

Facebook just announced on Wednesday (June 10th) that it will begin providing access to vanity URLs tomorrow (June 13th, 12:01am). (This means that a user's Facebook URL can read <http://www.facebook.com/username>, instead of a random number-based URL.) These vanity URLs will be available on a first-come, first-serve basis.

Facebook explains that this new vanity URL service will make it easier to locate FB pages. There is a serious concern, however, that this will open the doors for a flood of trademark infringers and cybersquatters.

To address this concern, FB is giving holders of federally-registered trademarks owners the opportunity to block requests for URL extensions using their marks.

To register your registered mark with FB, take this simple steps NOW before the vanity URL gates open just after midnight tomorrow:

1. Go to http://www.facebook.com/help/contact.php?show_form=username_rights.

2. Complete the simple form. (You'll need your trademark registration number at hand.)

3. You'll receive a submission acknowledgment email from FB.

4. FB will then examine your submission and, if approved, will withhold your mark from the public reservation process that begins tomorrow.

Be ahead of the curve and get your mark registered today.

If you need assistance, email me at ELoza@TechnologyLawGroup.com for Technology Law Group's brand of intellectual property and Internet legal services.