Battling the "CompanyNameSucks.com" cyberactivists

The appearance of Web sites designed to negatively impact a company's goodwill have increased with the popularity of the Internet and the ease with which information is disseminated worldwide. These "complaint" sites frequently appear at Internet addresses that couple a company name with a negative connotation, i.e., CompanyNameSucks.com. Various remedies within the intellectual property arena have been pursued against CompanyNameSucks.com cyberactivists, including: 1. trademark infringement, 2. trademark dilution, 3. the new NSI domain dispute resolution policy, 4. the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act. Finally, the federal courts' position regarding CompanyNameSucks. com domain names may lead to creative business solutions that allow companies to avoid litigation altogether. There is serious business risk associated with a company policy of pursuing all CompanyNameSucks.com registrants in that the company objective of preventing this type of activity is likely in the end to fail when the domain name registrants are held to be engaged in noncommercial criticism.