Battery Retailer w/multiple domains w/ TM in domains. Discuss!

[WhoaDomain.com]

Hey NP,
My GF just now asked me if some website she was thinking of buying a battery from for her phone was legit. I checked out the who.is for the domain Pantech***Battery in king and found out it wasn't owned by Pantech but was owned by a physical retail store in Detroit, Michigan called Quality Retailers Inc. website is Quality****Retailers in queen.

Interestingly enough if you check out their website they have a ton of other mini sites. each one catering to a specific brand of battery.

as someone who has been chewed out for having TM related domains. can someone explain or give their input on how it's possible this company can blatantly use the brand names of these obviously TM brands in their domain?

I'm assuming it's because they are resellers of these brands and they do point to product pages only for these brands.

as a domainer is there a way to work something like this out to our own benefit to reg such domains and then sell them?

not to beat a dead horse to death but seems to be it's sort of possible.

Many on here are very quick to just give a blanket statement that any and all TM issues are "the work of the Devil" but here's one example of a company making full use of TM's in their domains.

I would think that the brand owners wouldn't want anyone competing with them in the Google Searches for ranking their own brand names.

I'm assuming they had to get permission? can this be done with any company? what's the risk? giving them a heads up you own such a domain?

What do you think?

 

[SpareDomains]

Looks like they sell OEM batteries so anytime they make a sale the original manufacturer included in the domain their using woud be profiting as well. So they either asked permission and they said yes due to it helping them as well or they didn't ask and assumed it was okay.

Based on doing affiliate marketing through shareasale, cj, linkshare etc... over 13+ years it's generally a toss up as some programs will say yes feel free to use our mark as long as it benefits us and others will say don't use our trademarks in your domains, ppc advertising etc...

My advice always seek permission first or read their terms as quite a few have this listed as a no go because if you spend time buying trademark domains, ranking mini sites, advertising etc... after your profitable in doing this you might find their not okay with it and it will basically be a slam dunk for them to cut off any payments owed to ya and in them taking the domains away from you unless you have them in writing giving you permission to market that way.

All my domain sales negotiations are in writing and saved for 13+ years for a reason. I even save inquiries that don't lead to a sale. Phone calls lead to he/she said. Writing is bulletproof and can be referenced later should legal issues/term disagreements arise.