Trademark Law

American Idol Appearance: Cybersquatting on Dolly Parton's Personal Name

By Enrico Schaefer

As many of you know, American Idol is hosting Dolly Parton week, which means your favorite idols will be crooning to their favorite Dolly Parton tunes.  We thought we would take this opportunity to list some of the most blatant cybersquatters on Dolly Parton's famous name (which, of course, are protected under both trademark law and the UDRP) and official web site www.dollyparton.com.

• www.dolly-parton.com (re-direct to www.any-web.com/main.asp?SiteID=DOLLY-PARTON.COM which displays links to on-line vendors of Dolly Parton music and wares).
• wwwdollyparton.com  (site linking to ads for various Dolly Parton web sites)
• dollypartons.com (same)
• dollypartin.com (redirect to countrymuzic.org which is an adfarm site)
• dollypaton.com (adlink site)

There are more cyber-squatters on the Dolly Parton name, but this will give you an idea about what cybersquatting sites look like and how common squatting occurs. You might ask "What is the difference between American Idol using the Parton name and the sites above?"   American Idol, and its contestants, have permission to leverage the Dolly Parton name.  Cybersquatters do not.  They lurk in the shadows of the internet, hoping no one will notice their theft of internet traffic and adword revenue. 

Full post as published by Domain Name Dispute Blog on April 01, 2008 (boomark / email).