Legal Aid in the 21st Century

Protecting our clients and

their rights online…

What is CyberPiracy?

We use the term CyberPiracy to describe a range of techniques used to take advantage of our clients or our organizations by misusing our names, our domain names or our mission.

Often they masquerade as us.

Why do these issues matter

Low-income people increasingly turning to the Internet for information – can easily be taken advantage just as we’ve seen in other areas: Predatory lending Legal advice/promises from non-lawyers

Clients who do not have access to information online are at a disadvantage.

In finding jobs, housing, information

Defining CyberPiracy

Thanks to Damian Reil who developed much of the content for the CyberPiracy PowerPoint. Additional information including extensive legal citations for trademark and cybersquatting law can be found in the original version of this presentation developed for the LSC TIG Conference, January 2007.

CyberPiracy TIG project

CyberPiracy TIG project Pine Tree Legal Assistance (PTLA) in

partnership with the Legal Services National Technology Assistance Project (NTAP), received $20,000 for 2007 from the Legal Services Corporation (LSC)

Funds a project that ensures the poverty law community adequately protects its entire client community from predatory websites posing as legal aid services 

CyberPiracy TIG project Primary goal

Protect low-income website consumers from fraud and confusion by predatory websites

Second goal Ensure legal aid organizations’ statewide

websites are protected from cyber-piracy

Types of CyberPiracy Domain-name Disputes (Cybersquatters)

E.g., pinetreelegal.com

(Domain Grabbing) E.g., South Bronx Legal Services

Deceptive Keywords E.g., Search engine results for “legal aid” include

ads for-profit firms or matching services

To Learn More Stay current on issues in CyberPiracy

as well as updates on the TIG project Visit the Cyber Piracy section of the

LSNTAP website: http://lsntap.org/techlibraryhttp://lsntap.org/techlibrary

Impact on Legal Aid Programs/Clients

Points to Ponder: What is the impact of CyberPiracy on legal

aid clients or potential clients? Has your program experienced complaints

from people misdirected to commercial sites?

How do you think we as a community can measure the impact of these non-legal service websites?

Domain-Name Disputes (Cybersquatting)

Cybersquatting: PineTreeLegal.com

Domain Names In today’s world, domain names are

often the most important use of an organization’s trademarks

Malicious entities often have incentive to infringe on trademarks To directly mislead customers to their

competing or related sites or To obtain “click-through” payments for

their advertisements.

Domain Names: Remedies If you find that someone has a domain

name that infringes on your mark, you have several remedies: Request voluntary transfer through direct

contact with owner

Bring UDRP action to transfer URL

Bring ACPA case in Federal Court

Domain Names: UDRP If a direct request is not successful, you may

wish to bring a Uniform Dispute Resolution Proceeding (UDRP).

Most common remedy sought Streamlined system honed by thousands of

cases over several years Effective through the ICANN registration

system, providing for immediate transfer of infringing domain names

Transfer will be ordered if: (i) your domain name is identical or

confusingly similar to a trademark or service mark in which the complainant has rights; and

(ii) you have no rights or legitimate interests in respect of the domain name; and

(iii) your domain name has been registered and is being used in bad faith.

Process and Importance of Trademark Registration

Domain Names: ACPA Alternatively, may file suit in Federal Court

under the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act (ACPA),

When to file under ACPA?When to file under ACPA? When you seek remedies over and above

cancellation or transfer of a domain name If you anticipate the cybersquatter will challenge

the UDRP result in court anyway Drawbacks to ACPA filing:Drawbacks to ACPA filing:

Much more expensive than UDRP proceeding Often takes much longer to complete

Search Engine Results

Search Engine Results Trademarks also important in context of search

engine “sponsored links” Companies purchase ads to accompany search-

engine queries e.g., search for “flower” gets FTD ad

These ads are referred to as “keyword” advertising or, in marketing circles, “pay-per-click” (PPC)

For example, a for-profit entity may buy advertising space when someone enters the query “legal aid” or “legal assistance”

Search Engine Liability In 2004, just before its IPO, Google

agreed to investigate trademark complaints “as a courtesy” and would “require the advertiser to remove the trademarked term from the content of the ad.”

http://www.google.com/tm_complaint_adwords.htmlhttp://www.google.com/tm_complaint_adwords.html

Search Engine and Competitor Liability

So are search engines and competitors liable for competitive keywords? The state of the

law is a mess

Cases are all over the map

Legal Match Lawsuit and Settlement

Legal Match Lawsuit and Settlement LegalMatch Shall Not Use the Disputed Marks.

LegalMatch agrees that it shall not use any of the Pine Tree Marks.

LegalMatch Shall Remove Legal Aid Organizations’ Marks.

Any legal aid organization can request that their name be removed.

LegalMatch Shall Not Use the Term “legal aid” in Advertising.

* * * because “legal aid” is a term of art meaning “aid provided by an organization established especially to serve the legal needs of the poor.”

Search Engine Results

Prevalence of deceptive Keywords in Legal Aid:

Research searching 75 legal aid program names in the major search engines (Google, Yahoo, MSN and AOL) revealed over 1,000 instances of deceptive keyword use

5-10 “common offenders” Companies who repeatedly use legal aid

program names as ad-words

Keywords and Search Engines Points to Ponder:

What is the best approach to the “keyword issue”:

Go after individual violators? Work with search engines on a possible

solution? Pros and cons of both approaches.

Relevance to Legal Aid

Relevance to Legal Aid How can Legal Aid orgs protect

themselves? Register your trademark Auto-renew domain names Ensure domain-name registrar lists your name

as both (1) Registrant and (2) Admin (3) Tech can stay third-party

Purchase domain-name variations clients may likely use

Domain names are as economical as $8/year

Practical Steps: Deceptive Keywords

1. Search for your own name2. Follow up with Advertiser3. If that fails, follow up with Search

Engines themselves 4. Might be more sympathetic for Legal

Aid organizations (PR sensitivity to misleading low-income

persons)

Practical Steps: Deceptive Keywords Add this to your intake questionnaire

Did you have trouble finding us? Did you look on the Internet? Were you misdirected?

Ask community resources, which may have seen such misdirection Libraries Community Centers (e.g., women’s shelters,

homeless shelters, courts)