Rival Toyota dealers from Pensacola, Florida are in court this month as Bob Tyler from Bob Tyler Toyota is suing Eastern Shore Toyota owner Shawn Esfahani for $1 million in damages for registering and abusing domains that used Bob Tyler’s mark. Esfahani is accused of launching confusing minisites on the domains that tricked visitors into calling/emailing Eastern Shore Toyota. The lawsuit was filed under the Anti-Cybersquatting Consumer Protection Act.
The sites are now offline and Eastern Shore VP, Gem Bertone said that the domains were registered and controlled by a third party contractor during an alternate web marketing campaign. Esfahani said that he shut down the sites and canceled his deal the contractor Advanced Dealer Systems as soon as he realized what was going on.
This is a great way to illustrate how not to use domain names. It appears these two Toyota dealership owners have seen each other in court before.
Original news source: PNJ.com (Pensacola News Journal)
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Hey mike
Good eyes and post. Will be interesting see what happens on this
Thanks ‘domains’ B-)
The other link is funny. The Iranian born owner’s dealership was called “Taliban Toyota”
@UJH – I saw that 🙂 At least Mr. Tyler didn’t retaliate by regging talibantoyota.com and pointing it to the Eastern Shore… Instead just a million dollar lawsuit.
Thanks for share
I like Toyota trade mark.
is it just me