SHOPPERS ATTEMPTING to log on to popular catalog Web sites may be in for a rude surprise when they type in the wrong URL: unwanted offerings from cybersquatters.
For example, surfers who drop the first dot from www.officedepot.com are being shuttled to a series of windows hawking online gambling opportunities and credit card offers. A spokeswoman for Office Depot confirmed that she was aware of several such lookalike instances.
Catalogers like Lillian Vernon and Frederick’s of Hollywood also have been victimized, and many are fighting back. For example, Crate & Barrel recently sued two companies to gain possession of wwwcrateandbarrel.com.
Consumers who inadvertently punched in that URL were redirected to www.bettingexpress.com, an online gambling site, according to a lawsuit filed in March against Media Force Marketing Corp. and Media One Ent. Ltd.
The wwwcrateandbarrel.com is registered to Media One, of Fort Lauderdale, FL, according to papers on file with the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois Eastern Division. The complaint states that Betting Express is listed as a property of Media One. But a telephone number on the site connects callers to K.N.O.T. International Gaming, located on the Caribbean island of Antigua. K.N.O.T. executives were not available for comment.
Crate & Barrel asserted its complaint that Betting Express’s use of the wwwcrateandbarrel.com domain name confuses Web browsers, and that Crate & Barrel’s trademark might be tarnished, according to the court papers.
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