I thought the guy was pretty nice about it. Putting aside legal baloney, you might want to ask yourself if you really want to dismiss any possible hampering it could do to your own success and traffic. In other words, if you are aiming high with this project, it might not be in your interest to have such issues. Of course my comments all depend upon the nature of the sites, the domains in question, and your goals.

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POTD | FOS

Thank you everyone for all the comments. I have contacted a lawyer just to make sure but so far I have no update. I have also done some research and he would have to trademark the name (two words combined into one) in the USA which may not be favorable to him. It appears that the process of trademarking something goes in front of a panel for approval. So it is not just the person with the money and inclination to trademark something that actually gets the trademark.

And just so you guys have the details you may be wondering about, the two words that are combined which he is crying about are "just" and "parents". I personally am not concerned about rankings when my forum ends with .net and his ends with .co.uk. I am sure some will think his is more favorable since it has been up and running longer but that isn't my concern. I didn't even notice his forum until after I started mine since I typically only check the standard .com, .net, .org, etc. domains when selecting one I want to use. I understand what you mean though about traffic and who ends up getting what. Neither him or I own the .com version of that domain. The person that owns it is apparently selling it. I contacted him prior to all of this to find out what he wants for the .com domain and his asking price is ridiculous for an undeveloped domain.

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Mark Blair
NowParenting - "Parenting Discussion Community"
HostHideout - "Where Professionals Discuss Web Hosting"

There’s nothing he can do. As a fellow webmaster he’s asking you, but he can’t threaten you or proceed to force you to, there’s no law about that. I don’t think you’re in the wrong, and that is that. You’ve registered a domain, you didn’t intentionally want to steal his hits as he may assume. It’s really up to your heart if you want to work with him or not, but I don’t see any legal statutes he can proceed against you.

I contacted a lawyer and there is nothing the guy can do. According to the lawyer, since I registered the domain prior to him getting the phrase trademarked (if he does trademark it) then all he could do is contact me after he has a registered trademark and offer to buy the domain. Since I did not register the domain after he had the trademark in an attempt to cash in on something, I wouldn't be cybersquatting either. Ultimately, I am not worried one bit about him trademarking the name if he were to do that. I appreciate everyone's response in this thread. Frank what you posted made me think about this more on the promotion and marketing aspect then on the legal side of things. Right now there are two domains using the same name as the one I have (mine and his). Both have very similar content. Someone else owns the .com so there likely will be a third sometime in the future. That is a lot of sites with the same material and the same name. If I had the .com I wouldn't worry about it but since I don't, I certainly don't want to send someone else my traffic. I have been discussing this with a few other people that help run the site and we decided we will be changing the domain name. This decision has absolutely nothing to do with the guy in the UK because I will be keeping the old domain and just forwarding it to the new site. However, for the benefit of us getting the site known as its own and not a copy of someone else's, I think this is the best move.

Thanks again everyone! I really appreciate all of the responses here.

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Mark Blair
NowParenting - "Parenting Discussion Community"
HostHideout - "Where Professionals Discuss Web Hosting"

You have the domain so the trademark wont count to you only to domains after that. I no a guy that opened resturatn called metro cafe and theres metro bar down the round he trademarked the Metro part but they ewere allowed to keep it as they had it first

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That's how I was pretty much looking at it. The more important long-term aspect. Glad I could help in what little way I did, and glad you are getting your thoughts sorted.

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POTD | FOS

What's your new domain name?

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Jacob
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you have nothing to worry about - people do this all the time. they get similar domain names and then try to compete. positive content and postivie promotion will always win in the end. but there is nothing he can do to stop you from using the domain name you purchased.

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Thanks for inquiring. The new domain name will be nowparenting.com. We will be making the switch this weekend to start using the new name.

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Mark Blair
NowParenting - "Parenting Discussion Community"
HostHideout - "Where Professionals Discuss Web Hosting"