Should You Get a Domain Name With a Trademark In It? (Part 1)
In the business forums I frequent, far too many times the question comes up:
Can I get a domain name with Company X’s trademark in it?
The Short Answer: yes.
The Long Answer: no - you’ll hate yourself if you do.
Frankly, there’s nothing stopping you from taking a name like eBay or WordPress and creating a domain around it - many people do, and registrars like Godaddy and NameCheap will happily sell you one.
But just because someone isn’t currently stopping you doesn’t mean they won’t someday - and it’s at that time when you could lose everything!
To show you how it could work, a little story:
Back in the old days of the Internet (2000), I decided, like many programmers out there, to write my own MP3 player. It was easy to use, skinnable, and eventually had on the fly audio adjustment, XML files for configuration, and a flexible Unicode database (for all those songs you have in Mandarin).
Since I planned to sell it, I contacted the appropriate folks about licensing the MP3 format - and waited.
After a month or two, I thought this meant I was home free, and went ahead to release it.
(of course, you can see where this is going)
The week I went live I received a pleasant email from their legal team.
The end result? Either pay or stop marketing. I chose the latter.
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