Post-Domain Infringement

After testing the concept with select users, in June 2009 Facebook offered its subscribers an opportunity to create personalized Web addresses, or vanity URLs. The prospect of vanity URLs, incredibly alluring to Facebook and Twitter users, struck fear into the hearts of trademark owners. Policing one's mark when a Facebook or Twitter user could incorporate it into a vanity URL became far more difficult. The Internet is no respecter of political boundaries, emphasizing the necessity of a federal remedy. But whether extant legal tools are sufficient to address unauthorized post-domain path trademark use is doubtful. Once again, the law needs to catch up to the Internet. There is no easy road to a federal remedy for trademark owners who are aggrieved by unauthorized use of their marks in vanity URLs on Facebook or Twitter. Initial interest confusion and functional use of nonvisible tags may develop in the context of post-URL path infringement, but the direction the path may take is unclear.