I was having a discussion with a friend of mine today and we got to discussing the issue of trademarks in domain names. An example would be I-Love-My-Ipod.com. It is against the law to use someone else’s trademark in a domain name and the trademark owner can legally force you to relinquish control over your domain name. Ipod has issued threats to several websites forcing them to change their name. According to Wired, earlier this year, one of the web’s leading iPod-focused websites, iPodLounge, changed its name to iLounge.

Well, the question of sub domains came up. Do sub-domains count? Could I legally have a domain name called ipod.buyithere.com? Thus my research began and I discovered that the presence of a trademark in a web page’s URL post-domain path does not violate federal trademark law. Well, that’s good news, I could definitely own a site called MySite.com/ipod/ipod.html But what about a sub domain, otherwise known as third level domains?

According to Apple “You may not use an identical or virtually identical Apple trademark as a second level domain name.” So at least in the Ipod scenario I could have a site called ipod.buyithere.com as ipod would be the third-level domain. Of course they could always change their mind, take Jews for Jesus for example.

Back in Dec. 2005 Jews for Jesus filed a complaint against Google claiming that jewsforjesus.blogspot.com violated their trademark. The site had some negative remarks about Jews for Jesus which was belief for the cause of the suit, I doubt they would sue if the site had positive things to say about them. A dismissal was filed and both parties ended up settling their dispute out of court. Now if you go to the site jewsforjesus.blogspot.com you get a blog with links to the official Jews for Jesus website.

So you never really know if using a trademark in a subdomain is going to get you in trouble or not. However, if your site is fordtrucks.suck.com you could be totally safe. Sites like Paypalsucks.com and Lockheedsucks.com have been able to get away with using those domains due to free speech and there are exceptions to the trademark/copyright law that allow for use such as satire, parody, criticism, etc. Just be ready to defend yourself if you have a site like that as you may have to.

What did I learn from all this? Unfortunately, not much. Anyone can sue you for anything they want. However, if you use a trademark as a page or sub-directory of your site you are okay, but as far as a subdomain (third level domain) it’s probably best to avoid it and be on the safe side.