.>>>>>>>Her business is a two word name and right now,
 that name is taken. She is agonizing over how to get around this. If
 she adds the number "2" at the end of it (businessname2.com) that is
 not taken. But, she wonders about the feasibility of having a number
 appear in a domain name. Good, bad, no one does it?? She can add an "s"
 and pluralize the name (businessnames.com)<<<<<<<<<<<<<


there is always the issue of cybersquatting and trademark infringement if
you ad an "s" to the existing users domain name

Be sure to do a trademark search and barring that, if the domain is locally
owned you can still infringe on common law trademark!  The worst thing is
that you will be driving more traffic to your competitors site if they
forget to ad the s to the domain :)   Then on the other hand you could be
charged with registering the domain in bad faith to steal users from the
existing domain.

Proceed with caution, my friend. Try to convince her to get her own unique
domain name.

Here is on of the most famous cases of this situation:

http://www.jmls.edu/cyber/cases/cardsvc1.txt
Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy

http://www.icann.org/udrp/udrp.htm

4
    b. Evidence of Registration and Use in Bad Faith. For the purposes of
Paragraph 4(a)(iii), the following     circumstances, in particular but
without limitation, if found by the Panel to be present, shall be evidence
of the registration and use of a domain name in bad faith:

  (i) circumstances indicating that you have registered or you have acquired
the domain name primarily for the purpose of selling, renting, or otherwise
transferring the domain name registration to the complainant who is the
owner of the trademark or service mark or to a competitor of that
complainant, for valuable consideration in excess of your documented
out-of-pocket costs directly related to the domain name; or

  (ii) you have registered the domain name in order to prevent the owner of
the trademark or service mark from reflecting the mark in a corresponding
domain name, provided that you have engaged in a pattern of such conduct; or

  <!--READ-->(iii) you have registered the domain name primarily for the
purpose of disrupting the business of a competitor; or

  (iv) by using the domain name, you have intentionally attempted to
attract, for commercial gain, Internet users to your web site or other
on-line location, by creating a likelihood of confusion with the
complainant's mark as to the source, sponsorship, affiliation, or
endorsement of your web site or location or of a product or service on your
web site or location.<!--now proceed with caution-->



bob laurence
RE-Data.com LLC

IANAL:
I am not a lawyer.  I cannot give legal
advice.  All ideas, concepts and points are made
purely for academic and intellectual purposes, and for
no other reasons.  Please consult an attorney for
actual legal advice.








----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Carole Goodwin" <carole(at)devons.com>
To: "HWG Techniques" <hwg-techniques(at)hwg.org>
Sent: Tuesday, June 03, 2003 8:02 AM
Subject: Question on domain names


> I'm not sure if this is the right list or not. Please let me know.
>
> I have a client who wants me to do their site. She is getting ready to
> purchase a domain name. Her business is a two word name and right now,
> that name is taken. She is agonizing over how to get around this. If
> she adds the number "2" at the end of it (businessname2.com) that is
> not taken. But, she wonders about the feasibility of having a number
> appear in a domain name. Good, bad, no one does it?? She can add an "s"
> and pluralize the name (businessnames.com) but that is not really the
> name of her business, although it works. Which is preferable? Adding
> the number or making the domain name the plural of the business name?
> Both of those are available for purchase.
>
> Thank you!
>
>   Carole
>
> Rex-N-FX & 2Blondz  Devon Rex
> http://www.devons.com
> "Pixies With Pizzazz!"
>
>
>

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