Maybe you are finding that your next calling in life is to take on a large franchise such as Walmart or KFC or the NFL or the POTUS (President of the United States).

What do you register your domain name under?

Can you take their domain name and just add sucks to the end of the domain name and proceed without any legal liability?

If you are an American you should have freedom of speech under the First Amendment of the Constitution. 

Wrong!

Not necessarily actually.  The laws are definitely murky in this area as free speech is put up against trade name protection or trademark law.

You actually have to peel the onion back a little further and take a look at a number of other factors including how much your site looks like or resembles the target of your protest.

Here is a partial legal analysis that might help you gain some greater insight into the pitfalls and complexities.

Make sure you know what you are getting into before the corporate legal firms of Walmart come banging on your door.  Be prepared and stay within the law if you want to avoid having to reach for a pulse oximeter to insure that you are still alive after you get hit with a lawsuit that you and your cause can not afford.

This entry was posted on Friday, July 20th, 2007 at 11:19 pm and is filed under Online Protests. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.