How To Save Your Business From Internet Thugs

Imagine this scenario: Jane just got her website up for her shoe-selling business. She has put up samples there and has forwarded some newsletters to her family and friends and has included www.janeshoe.com as part of the newsletters, but then two months down the line, she has received just a few clicks and no order. She is worried that her confidence in her products is fast eroding. Now, Jane does not know that it may not be her fault, after all. Jane may have to consider this.

Get Yourself Secure First

If you desire to get your business up on the internet, first off, you need to consider the use of domain names. Domain names, such as www.microsoft.com or www.goal.com, are identification strings that make your internet space unique only to you. Once your domain names are registered, you may face these common issues.

·        Cybersquatting: cybersquatting is when individuals registered domain names with resemblances to your company, with a view to selling this name to you when you realise the need for a web presence. 

·         Parody and sucks.com disputes may arise when an individual runs a website, which though is not the official website of your company, but it is aimed at parodying or rubbishing the company concerned.

·        Reverse domain name hijacking happens where a trading company buys up all the possible domain names that it could ever want, including top-level country domains in countries other than its principal location.

·        Domain name hijacking: Jane’s domain name www.janeshoe.com may simply have been hijacked by a regular folk, who goes on to do what he wants with it.

·        Typosquatting shares resemblances with domain name hijacking, but with the name misspelt, (for instance, www.janeshoes.com) all with the objective of attracting unsuspecting customers to the site.

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How Do You Get Over This?

Apart from reporting this to your Internet Service Provider, you may have to take any of these further actions.

1.      Make sure when setting up your online shop that you enter into contracts with either your Internet Service Providers or other the relevant intermediaries, as the courts are bound only by the terms of those contracts. This may form the basis for any request to take down the violating site. Pitman Training Ltd and Anor v. Nominet UK and AnotherThis is because request for a domain name is usually made through an Internet Service Provider who then makes arrangement with agencies within their respective countries, either with or without the authority of the government concerned (in the case of domain names within countries) or the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICAN), in the case of domain names involving top-level domain names.

2.       If you are aggrieved by the use of domain names by another which is identical or confusingly similar to a trademark or service mark as to be calculated to mislead an unsuspecting person, you can also maintain an action in the tort of passing off, trademark or infringement.

3.      ICAN has also provided a method for resolution of disputes between parties, according to its Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy, which allows an administrative action to settle matters out of courts, or where individuals are not agreed, recourse to court of competent jurisdiction.

4.      Under the Nigerian Advanced Fee Fraud and Other Related Offences Act, any person who uses any false pretense, and with intent to defraud, to obtain, induce the delivery of any property to him could be convicted and punished for up to twenty years in jail.

Charles Rapulu Udoh

Charles Rapulu Udoh a Lagos-based Lawyer with special focus on Business Law, Intellectual Property Rights, Entertainment and Technology Law. He is also an award-winning writer. Working for notable organisations so far has exposed him to some of industry best practices in business, finance strategies, law, dispute resolution and data analytics both in Nigeria and across the world.