say I have a site called www.thisisnotme.com right, and then i discovered a site called www.thisnotme.com that was owned by someone else, would that be legal?

the first website has no trademark.

I would think its more unethical than illegal?

could contact them and ask to buy their site correct? Or what would be the best thing to do?

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Loads of people do it. Look at gopoggle.com or any number of misspellings of google out there.

Sure, its unethical(you're tryig to make money from peoples mistakes) but illegal? I wouldn't think so.

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My Blog thing!

Trademark infringement isn't a good idea

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I don't think it's illegal, it's a real pain though. I have the same situation with a German company using my name without the S - I have to emphasise the url when giving it to people over the phone - it's not so bad though because they're not in competition with me.

However, someone close to me has had a .ie domain for years and last year, a person in the same business, working in the same town, registered the plural version of the name. I just think it's a smart-arse uncool thing to do and he will have no luck with it!

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The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity - Dorothy Parker

Sorry, it's not too clear which site has the trademark. If your site has the trademark then there should be no problem, however if it is the other....well, as Blacknight has said it is a bad idea to engage in trademark or copyright infringement.

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It depends on a lot of things. If you have a trademark then you may have a stronger case. But again you would have to enforce that trademark by taking an action. And if this other site is doing something different to your site then you could very well lose that action.

Are they even aware of your site or does their site even predate your site?

The best thing would be to establish a time line (which site is the oldest), the nature of the other site (is it in the same market as your's), the owner of the other site and where they are based etc. Then use Alexa.com or Compete.com to see what approximate traffic levels that site has relative to your's and whether it is taking significant traffic from your home market. Legal action can be expensive.

Regards...jmcc

The obvious thing to check is if the other site is "passing off" ie. misleading users into believing that is yours or piggybacking on your "good name"

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Hello:
I think that your case is not just illegal, is a dirty competition strategy. The authorities must take car about it!
Pamela Richards
Designer
Frankfurt