If you’ve been around the web for a while, you’ll remember all the legal issues from the last decade about people buying domains containing the names of famous companies. They would collect every variation they could afford (mcdonalds.net, for example) and then wait for the company to pay them big bucks for the addresses. Or set up a site critical of the company.
That particular conflict was resolved by ICANN, the organization that regulates internet naming, deciding that copyrighted names did belong to the owner and that someone "cybersquatting" could be forced to give up a domain if it infringed on the copyright.
But a law suit filed this week takes that concept one step farther. The group Jews for Jesus is suing Google for allowing someone to create a blog in their Blogger system (one which is critical of them) with that name in the address. In essence, they are asking the court to rule that a subdomain can’t include someone else’s trademark.
It will be interesting to see how this one plays out. If the judge does side with the organization, I wonder how long it will take for someone to sue over a blog title that’s not in the address.