Robert Arkow runs a website at the domain names metrolinkrider.com and metrolinksucks.com (no longer active) where riders and employees of Metrolink, the Southern California commuter rail system, share their gripes about services and fares. Metrolink filed a complaint under the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP), an agreement imposed by ISPs that subjects domain-name owners to mandatory arbitration for challenges to their ownership of domain names. Metrolink claimed that the domain names were confusingly similar to its own and were registered in bad faith. Metrolink was particularly peeved about postings on the site "with such statements as 'Stupid Metrolink Tricks---Seen something really dumb on Metrolink?' and 'Are the Engineers that stupid?'"

The arbitration panel denied the complaint, siding with the pro se domain name owner. Noting a split in past decisions on the issue, the panel held that noncommercial use of a trademark in a domain name for purposes of comment or criticism did not violate the UDRP. It wrote: "[S]omething more than criticism is required to establish illegitimacy and bad-faith for purposes of the [UDRP]."

Use of trademark law to squelch criticism is an ongoing problem, and is of particular concern when claims are brought in international tribunals that aren't bound by the First Amendment. Here, it looks like the panel reached the right result. Public Citizen successfully defended another web critic against a similar UDRP claim by a homebuilder earlier this year.

The Citizen Media Law Project drew my attention to this case, and has lots more background on the UDRP.

Cross-posted from Consumer Law & Policy Blog