Dell Sues Affiliates
Dell affiliates Alf Temme, Lars Crispin Temme and Kim Temme are in big ka-ka for profiting from the avails of typosquatting.
The typosquatters registered d3ell.com, de3LL.com, d4ell.com, de4ll.com, dedll.com, derll.com and dxell.com, all of which redirected visitors to Dell.com through their affiliate links.
Dell has taken legal action on the basis of trademark infringement and wants the the defendants to hand over the domain names, and to pay legal fees and damages.
I dunno, but the terms and conditions of Dell’s affiliate program at Linkshare are pretty darned clear and posted right there on the front page …
By partnering with Dell, you have agreed to refrain from the following activities, and any violation of this Section shall be deemed a material breach of this Agreement:
(a) Use or otherwise incorporate the word “Dell” or variations or misspellings in the domain name(s) of your Site(s), on any meta tags of Web pages comprising your Site, or in advertising or searchable keywords.
(b)You may not bid the following: all trademark and brand terms, including but not limited to “Dell” “Inspiron” and “Dimension”.
(Dell will probably drop me as an affiliate after their name shows up in the title bar of its post.)
Anyway, it’ll be interesting to find out what happens. So, stay tuned.
Original info posted in the Inquirer on January 12th, 2007.
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Rosalind Gardner is a Super Affiliate blogger, author, speaker, and Internet marketing consultant.
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Ok, so in this case, MAYBE they have a point. I don’t know. But it looks harmless on the surface.
I mean, unless you are “trashing” their name, how else are you SUPPOSED to do it?! on any meta tags of Web pages comprising your Site, or in advertising or searchable keywords.
(Your landing page)
Something like that I suppose?
Serriously though…
Is this just because they want less competition on the keyword side of things? And they don’t even want their own affiliates to compete? Is this something that might catch on with others? OR, (hope not) is this a standard thing? (to be so “tight” on copyright infringement)
You really keep up on stuff Ros! Thanks for all the great info!
Brad.
you should be ok. strictly speaking, ‘title’ isn’t a meta tag.
Hi,
I think Dell is taking this too far. They’re only using their financial muscle to frustrate the “Averege Joe”.
These guys are promoting them (Dell) so I don’t think there should be a problem with that. If they were re-directing the visitors to somewhere else, we could all have said foul play.
Come to think of it. Who mispells dell.com as de3LL.com or d4ell.com?
Strange to me! But I think those guys are smart.
Dell should take it easy.
Akin Alabi
http://www.AverageJoeAffiliate.com
=
=
I had a similar incident with Mrs. Fields. I was sending over $100,000 to them every year and they dropped me as an affiliate (no suits). My thinking is: As long as it’s legal and affiliates are bringing me customers, I’m happy!
Hey Kit,
Were you playing with cookies? hahaha
Anyway, that’s a 100K less that Mrs. Fields is making every year. Sad for them.
Hope you managed to replace the lost income.
Cheers,
Ros
Interesting to know if those misspells actually have traffic. They did those because 3 and 4 are 5ight above ‘e’. lol…
Back to seriousness…sure, d***s tos is plain as day. But suing them? Delloooo? I’m sure just a simple email from their legal dept would have worked very well.
Way over the top and vicious of them. Obviously they don’t care one wit that many affiliates work hard to do this. But it’s business and we all know what corps and suits are like. Ummm…I do believe that’s why we do this in the first place.
Hard to imagine those typos were getting many searches but if they were / are then Dell should be glad these guys found them and didn’t redirect them somewhere else. Suing because you were too stupid to think of it first…again, if they were sending the traffic somewhere else I could understand the concern.
you guys are really smart with this stuff. i cant make a penny off this affiliate marketing. i wish there was a way to get going on this to make a living without a j-o-b, just over broke,,hahaha that is funny, it always makes me laugh..back to work:{
They need to immediately sign up for an Apple Aff account and redirect all that traffic to them…
Good for Dell for staying on top of their business. Those guys obviously violated the terms provided…that’s not a gray area! It helps keep the playing field level for those of us who operate with integrity. D. Channell
Hi Roz,
Would you happen to know the answer to this question………Is it OK/illegal/unethical to do typosquatting if one is NOT an affiliate of the targeted conpany?
Thanks for any help you can give me.
Guy
I don’t have much of a problem with this in general, since there are a lot worse ways you could use those domains! But, if they were warned first, and then continued anyway, well then they were asking for it. With so many different rules for different merchants, even I have been contacted before for bidding on a keyword. I immediately complied and that was the end of it. So, if they were warned first, they simple figured the money was worth it, and may not have ever figured Dell would take legal action.
i used to work for a company that helped faciliate this kind of thing. it is extremely widespread and works by capitalizing on mispelled domain names, which is easy to do. people with arthritis, typing on a cold day when fingers are less snappy, and so on. these surfers are attempting to get to the dell site and would get there by themselves eventually if the domain squatters did not intercept them. these so called “affiliates” do next to no work for their money and deserve nothing but the law suits and jail time coming their way. when i discovered the kind of work i was helping to faciliate (it was ppc redirection–a much milder form of the transgression discussed above) i let it be known i didn’t think too highly of it. no surprise that i was shown the door not too long after that.
ok…guess my post was too ’something’ for you. it’s ok…you don’t want to post my thoughts…I’ll unsubscribe from your newsletter…not that I think you care. and don’t bother emailing me with your thoughts.
This is the thing! All affiliate Marketers push the “rules” to the limit. This just makes it harder for the next person starting out. Do you realy think D*– cares, as long as the redirect goes to them? This is just a ’save face’ thing. I bet they diden’t return the buyers money.
I think it’s not fair from Dell since those people were just promoting them.
I hope everything goes well. It can be sad to lose your affiliate business just for a mistake.
Don’t you think they received a cease and desist letter prior to being sued? If they did, and the affiliates completely ignored this, I think they should be sued, especially if the terms were clearly stated in their terms and conditions agreement.
Way to drive the potential Dell affiliates AWAY!!
Meta-Tags…….now that is just stupid!
Let’s see, they never said they were Dell.com, they never took money or sales AWAY from Dell.com and they MADE Dell MONEY…….
And the domains…..please…..again, a pure waste of time…..anything with a “D” in it is infringing on their trademark??
Sorry, nowhere in their domains does it say Dell, Dale, or whatever……what morons Dell is being……
Typosquatting, is also a silly idea. None of the stuff was even close to Black Hat….
If I were the judge in the case, I would THROW out the suite? I mean come on……how did they cause Dell ANY damages? Duh…they, did not….
Jack
Hmmmm……pretty stupid, I say.
That the death of DELL, all affiliates should pull out and go to their competitors. I certainly wont buy or recommend DELL ever again.
Two years ago a takeway place that I did alot of business with tried to take me for extra, I NEVER ORDERED FROM THEM AGAIN….They lost thousands in LOST BUSINESS…They probably went BUST!