According to the ChicagoTribune.com, United and Continental airlines, filed suit on Nov. 19, in both the Federal Court of Canada and Superior Court of Quebec. against the owner of Untied.com.
The domain name Untied.com, has been owned by a Canadian professor for 15 years and airs complaints from disgruntled United Airlines passengers and employees.
The filed allege the complaint site violates the airline’s copyright and trademarks.
It also alleges the site violates the privacy of senior airline employees by posting contact information for those employees.
United Airlines say that it took the action after the site was redesigned in April to made it look more like the United.com.
According to the article the airline asked him to modify his site so customers would not be confused. The domain holder on the an engineering professor at McGill University in Montreal, claims the airline is trying to bully and intimidate him, and he vowed to fight the suits.
“They are trying to shut down my site instead of dealing with their problems,” Cooperstock said. “If they had put as much effort into improving their service as into these SLAPP suits, there’d be no reason for the website.”
The site claims to have “collected more than 25,000 passenger complaints against United, along with hundreds of postings from mistreated employees.”
“No reasonable person would possibly confuse my page with United’s own page,” he said.
When you visit Untied.com a pop up immediately appears to say:
“This site exists only because of the airline’s outright hostility toward its passengers and many of its employees.
Don’t show this message again”
This part week we wrote about a UDRP panel which rejected the complaint of Chick-fil-A against ChickFilaFoundation.com a Parody Site which used the same color and theme of the TM holder’s official site.
It’s great when companies do this, because it brings much more attention to their failings as seen by customers. Instead, they could approach this in a positive way, and say that they’re working to improve things, or if the complaints are untrue, show why they are untrue.
A company can try to quiet those who make negative comments against it through legal means, but that usually just makes things worse.
I still remember the nite I went to bed thinking I’d just registered the domain name UnitedWeStand.com only to wake up the next morning to find that I was the proud owner of UntiedWeStand.com. I think that was 2000 or early 2001.