DENVER POST -- June 18 -- A Colorado company that owns lovecity.com sued Yahoo, (also TRUE and Spark Networks) claiming they improperly used a trademark domain name to direct consumers looking for lovecity on Google to Yahoo's dating site. FULL ARTICLE @ DENVER POST
Mark Brooks: Dating companies typically manage tens of thousands of keywords for their PPC campaigns. Affiliates often do the same. It's super competitive, and easy to miss lower level trademarks. Were these affiliates I wonder?
I am constantly searching the web for trademark infringement. Owning the three words "looking for love" as well as "lookingforlove.com" keeps me busy. The offenders are big and small companies who are reaping the benefits of search engine trademark violations. There ought to be a law that will take into consideration the value of a US trademark.
Posted by: Janet Reiss | Feb 04, 2007 at 07:35 AM
Lookingforlove.com is an affiliate site. It drives traffic/business back to the dating sites. Interesting business model. It has a 2 million Alexa rank so there's not much traffic coming through the site. How many domains and tag lines did you trademark?
Mark Brooks
Editor, Online Personals Watch
Posted by: Mark Brooks | Feb 05, 2007 at 08:10 PM
Dear Mark: I made some major changes to the site and have decided to go with the business model that I had originally intended the trademark for...online dating. We are getting off to a good start. Our Alexa ranking has improved considerably. I know its a competitive field, but with excellent customer service and keeping the site high quality, you never know. It's free and its got great probabilities, one member at a time. Janet
Posted by: Janet Reiss | Apr 21, 2007 at 07:18 PM
I just keep plugging along. I trademarked "looking for love" and "lookingforlove.com". The new site is doing well. Growing in members with profiles and personal classifieds. Thanks for your site and all the important information.
Posted by: Janet Reiss | Mar 23, 2008 at 10:48 PM