As online services Groupon and Facebook have recently learned, cybersquatters are more than a mere nuisance.  Cybersquatting can disrupt or delay business expansion or operations, or compromise security and user experience. 

Groupon’s planned expansion to Australia was delayed for months because a clone site in Australia named Scoopon purchased the Groupon.com.au domain name, took the company name Groupon Pty Limited, and tried to register the Groupon trademark (filing for the trademark seven days before Groupon in Australia).  Groupon was forced

We are often asked to review web site terms of use.  Here are five provisions that often seem to be missing in action (in no particular order):

 

No Scraping

 

iStock_000005643842XSmall.jpgWith automated screen scraping tools readily available, this data harvesting technique presents issues for websites that allow users to search for data.  Even if you aren’t troubled that others may obtain mass access to the data, you may want to prohibit such activity simply to avoid the performance