Company says former franchisee created site to defame it.
Tutoring and SAT test prep franchisor Sylvan Learning has sued the domain name SylvanFranchiseIssues.com for violating the anti-cybersquatting act.
The company alleges (pdf) the site was set up by a former franchisee in which it is involved in litigation.
Finding the alleged owner of the site was no small feat. The suit details Sylvan Learning’s attempts to track down the owner, starting with an inquiry to eNom’s whois privacy service. That lead the company to an address in London. A contact there said he used to offer a service where people could use his address when registering domain names. The trail then moved to India and then to a former franchisee in Ohio.
The site’s owner allegedly did more that just create the site to peeve Sylvan. He allegedly forwarded web traffic to the site from Sylvan’s corporate offices to competitor Huntington Learning Centers. He also allegedly bought Google Adwords for his site when someone searched for “Sylvan Franchises”.
Once tracked down, the site’s owner claimed that Sylvan had violated SylvanFranchiseIssues.com’s (SFI) terms of services by visiting the site:
the Terms of Use “prohibit employees, related parties or independent contractors of Sylvan Learning Inc., or any of its affiliates or related parties from accessing the SFI website.”
Clever.
If you visit the domain name right now it gives an error that the site is currently in maintenance mode.
Trico says
“prohibit employees, related parties or independent contractors of Sylvan Learning Inc.,…accessing the SFI website.”
Okay I’m confused.
Doesn’t that prohibition above refer to unauthorized access or hacking of the Sylvan Corporate website?
How does registering a separate domain like
SylvanFranchiseIssues.com violate that policy?
Andrew Allemann says
@ Trico – the registrants of SylvanFranchiseIssues.com told Sylvan Learning that Sylvan Learning had violated his TOS on SylvanFranchiseIssues.com for accessing his site.
Trico says
Thanks Andrew.
I’m still half asleep. 🙂
ronin says
complaint
ronin says
I have heard that Sylvan is a really crappy frachise to own. A friend of mime owned one and lost all of their savings.
Richard C. says
I am afraid Sylvan is going to lose this one as Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act specifically excludes gripe sites. The Gripe site can then turn around and sue Sylvan for harassment because the law is very clear on this issue.
In an attempt to shut down a gripe site, companies have sued the gripe site owner alleging defamation, trademark infringement, trademark dilution, libel and copyright infringement. Public Citizen, the American Civil Liberties Union and the Electronic Frontier Foundation, for example, have defended gripe site owners in court on the grounds that free speech gripe sites are protected under the First Amendment to the United States Constitution or civil liberties provisions of constitutions in other countries.
And if this person is clever, which appears they are, they will simply move the information to another domain.
ESQ-Phil says
Richard is absolutely correct.
The ACPA does not prevent the fair use of trademarks or any use protected by the First Amendment, which includes gripe sites. So if someone wants to register and operate sylvansucks.com or sylvan-sucks.com that is perfectly permissible. Of course Sylvan and the law firm representing Sylvan know that already and are banking on SylvanFranchiseIssues.com not defending themselves.
Andrew Allemann says
They already got what they wanted…the site is still in “maintenance mode”
ESQ-Phil says
Been following this case very closely.
Sylvan Learning did get their butts kicked when the Court sided with the defendants and then Sylvan filed a motion to withdraw their case. Very Funnny!
They must have spent $90,000 to $100,000 to lose this case they had no business filing in the first case.
Richard C. says
I agree it is very funny how Sylvan Learning tried to silence a valid gripe site, sylvanfranchiseissues.com
The Court’s opinion gives hope for any valid gripe site that you cannot be shut down by someone with more money.
I do think Phil is low with Sylvan’s litigation costs. I put it somewhere around $130,000. Ouch!!!!!
Randy R. says
I am a Sylvan Learning franchise owner and found that sylvanfranchiseissues.com was an excellent website for getting “Real Information” about the Sylvan Franchise system.
I am glad Sylvan Learning lost this case.
What is upsetting is that Sylvan can spend over $100,000 to initiate a lawsuit (and lose) instead of using that money to better the franchise system. To be honest, I am afraid that the Sylvan Franchise will not survive the next 3 years.