eBay has fired another salvo in its attempt to own the word "bay." In a recent email to Ronnie Rodriguez, founder of AlternaBay, eBay's legal counsel claimed AlternaBay's domain name and logo infringes on eBay's trademark and will cause consumers to "mistakenly believe that AlternaBay is sponsored by, or affiliated with ebay." AlternaBay is a small, online auction site based in San Francisco catering to the gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender community.
According to Rodriguez, eBay's letter threatened legal action unless the site changed its name. eBay's attorney also complained that AlternaBay "uses a multi-color overlapping font for its logo" that he said is "similar to eBay's famous trademark." It should be noted that eBay's logo is bright, primary colors, while AternaBay's logo is done in yellow and hues of purple.
Rodriguez, a 35 year old gay San Franciscan, started AlternaBay "to create a fun and safe place for the Alternative community, the LGBT community of the San Francisco Bay Area, and our friends and families - that's why its called AlternaBay. The Bay is where we live, its for everyone, its not just for them." Nevertheless, Rodriguez has gone ahead and placed a disclaimer at the entrance to his site stating that AlternaBay is neither affiliated with nor sponsored by eBay.
In the past year, eBay has forced no fewer than three online sites to modify their names to remove the word "bay." BayPal.com became inkFrog.com in April, BrickBay.com changed to BrickLink.com in February, and BidBay.com changed to AuctionDiner.com in March and became Bidway.com in July.
In July 2001, eBay threatened legal action against a family business in Australia that had owned the rights to the trading name eBay Pty Ltd for more than 20 years.
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