Legal Matters

I got a phone call from eBay's legal department this morning.

To recap: I registered theebaythrifter.com as a domain name for this blog. A couple weeks later, I got an email from the eBay legal department informing me that it was a trademark violation, and that I needed to cease use of the domain name immediately or they would take legal action. I immediately cancelled the domain name and replied to them letting them know that.

A few days later, they wrote again, upset that I hadn't stopped using the domain name. I wrote back that I HAD stopped, and that I had emailed them to tell them that.

Several people suggested that it might not have been a legitimate email, so I contacted eBay customer service, who suggested that I forward it to eBay's spoof team. I did, and a couple days later got a response back saying that it was "most likely not sent to you from eBay." I decided that in legal instances, "most likely" wasn't good enough, so I called customer service again, and she suggested that I write an old-fashioned postal letter to the legal department.

I did that about 2 weeks ago and heard back from them today. Turns out, it actually WAS from them, and it actually IS a trademark violation to have the word "ebay" in any domain name at all that isn't actually eBay. I thought I was safe by cancelling my registered domain name, but the domain name that I was assigned by Blogger when I created this blog also has the word "ebay" in it. I asked her if that was ok, if it wasn't a registered domain name, and she said, "no, that's still a trademark violation."

Ugh. So I have to change the name of my blog. But just changing the name of it doesn't change the blogger-assigned URL, which means I'll have to create a NEW blog, export/import all of my posts/comments here, and shut this blog down.

Now that I'm fully informed, I refuse to be a "willful infringer," as they called me in a previous email. :-\

So, once that's complete, I'll be sure to post here where the new blog is. I guess I'll be working on that this weekend. One more distraction from listing, as if this goooooooorrrrrgeous weather hasn't been enough of a distraction. lol.