Domain - maybe typosquatting

[Jimi444]

I use the term typosquatting, because I cannot find another term for the legal mess I'm dealing with.
After I left a company, I was looking for a job and wanted to work on my IT skills a little bit more. So I registered a domain that was one letter off of the former company I worked for. I only used it for person testing and job skills. The only time there was a website (for about 5 days) it only had the name of the domain listed on it. The domain was never used for business, never interfered with my former employers business, never made profit from the domain, did not hold it for ransom, did not offer it for sale, did not redirect to any other site and did not post any slander. The only thing I did do was email a former co-worker. It was not a threatening email, I was only asking questions about a particular situation when I worked at the company.
I immediately got contacted by a lawyer from my former employer stating that they were filing a restraining order and injunction against me. They told me to stop using the domain and they accused me of interfering with their company business. And that I must have registered the domain in order to interfere with the company business.
I have since turned over the domain to my former employer. I only needed it while I was looking for a job, so I have no need for it now. Can they really claim civil damages for interfering with their business when I have not done anything? I owned the domain for 4 or 5 months and did not do anything malicious with it.
I have research all the WIPO and ICANN rules relating to this and I cannot see where my former employer would have a leg to stand on. The only WIPO rule they have to prove is that I registered or used the domain in bad faith. Bad faith has to do with competitive business. Since I was a former employee, would that be considered bad faith? ICANN does not have any rule, but just things that relate to copyright infringement. The domain was one letter off, so it was not an exact name of the company. If you were to look up the domain name, it only showed myself as the contact and that I was not a business.
Any thoughts?

 

[Michael Wechsler]

The legal term is actually called "typosquatting" when you believe someone is coming to the domain in question due to mistypes and the like, which could be the case here, e.g. googlle or g00gle. The root of the law of many of these cases comes from the 1-800-MATTRESS case but I won't talk about that here and stick to the issue.

I'd put my money down that nobody is coming after you. What damages has the company suffered by your actions? I don't see any and the domain was not used in commerce either. It sounds like puffing to get even with you and make you nervous about what you did. If they file something you'll let us know but in the meanwhile, sit back and wait as there isn't anything to do about it anyways. Good luck.

 

[Jimi444]

They did go forward with filing the injunction against me. I have two lawyers working on this case for me. There are a few other things involved not relating to this domain issue, but we agreed to the injunction. My lawyers rewrote the injunction to say "I agree to stop doing what I'm not doing and take no responsibility for issues happening with the company".
In the affidavit, they say that I registered the domain "for the apparent purpose of interfering and disrupting the company". They used "Tortiuous Interference with Business", "Harassing employees (since I sent one email to a former co-worker)" and "Representing himself to third-parties as having a relationship with the company".
The separate issue in this case has to do with the company being hacked. The company used pirated software and they were attacked by some hacker group from China, but they are trying to draw a link to me. They did not do a forensics investigation, they just assumed it was me since I used to work at the company and I had a domain that was one letter off. (The whole pirated software / wrongful term story is posted in the hire - fire section).
I am not worried about the whole domain thing, I'm just curious what kinda angle they are going to try and take with this. I never used it for business. And like you said, what were the damages to the company?

 

[Michael Wechsler]

There must be a lot more going on here. Lawyers don't usually file injunctions if there is no clear sign of immediate danger and they usually make demands first. Your lawyers should also know the clear rules regarding owning a domain and usage requirements to win in an arbitration. The tortious interference with business is another guess - why would they spend good money on a bad case if you did nothing but register a domain and speak to a non-hostile employee? You tell me! I may be missing a huge piece of the story.

 

[Jimi444]

The company suffered a DOS (Denial of Service) attack on they're network which shut down the company for a day. We requested the logs from this attack and all of the logs trace back to another country. But for some reason, they want to tie this attack to me. I think they are trying to draw a time table of when I emailed my old co-worker and when they were attacked. I'm a good IT guy, but not that good. At the time of this attack, I was in a official training class and have solid proof of my whereabouts for the entire day. They also said they have been receiving SPAM mail, which they assume is from me. They have been suffering from account lockouts, which they assume is from me. Their whole affidavit is filled with "we assume" and "we presume". The only thing they have me on is registering a domain and sending one email to an old co-worker.
I left the company back in April 2008 after I reported the Sr person was using russian pirated software on financial servers and domain controllers. Now it looks like they were using more pirated software and got attacked. This story has been posted under the "hiring - firing" section.

 

[Michael Wechsler]

Could be your old company just wants to spend money to irritate you, which has been known to happen. That still doesn't change the facts. Perhaps they lost a tremendous amount of money due to the DOS and they are hoping to be able to pin it on someone to help bail them out financially. I don't know. Bottom line is that, assuming all is true, I'd find it difficult to believe that if you turned over the domain, there would be a case of large damages against you. In the future, when doing something like this you need to demand a release of liability, e.g. by handing over the domain this ends the lawsuit, with prejudice, against you.