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Is it legal to use U.S. Government Names in Domains?

by cheech1981
6 replies
Hey everyone. Just curious if anyone knows...is it legal to use U.S. government-agency names (or abbreviations) in domain names? And if so, is it legal to monetize them?

Just as an example for the sake of discussion: Pennsylvania DMV Information (not owned by me but I've seen this site up for a while and it is monetized on the internal pages so it got me thinking).

Anyone have legal sources for this? Thanks for any ideas you can provide!
#domains #government #legal #names
  • Profile picture of the author LegionNate
    Not sure on that, but I would be curious about using the word "Federal", seeing as the Federal Reserve is not "federal" (it's privately owned) nor is it a reserve.

    Federal Express (FedEx), is another example.
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  • Profile picture of the author zigzag007
    I don't very much it is legal, You better investigate!
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    http://www.datewealthypeople.com
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  • Profile picture of the author E. Brian Rose
    After a simple trademark search, I found 55 trademarks with the name "FBI" in them. 42 had "DMV" in them. What agency did you have in mind? Oh ya... and why are you seeking legal advice from a bunch of avatars on the Internet?
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  • Profile picture of the author locke815
    I think you should further study and understand the terms and conditions of this laws.
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  • Profile picture of the author RexMapes
    I think you would be allright as long as you don't imply you are associated with the governing body involved and aren't using a .gov in any fashion (such as a subdomain).

    Use some common sense with it though, Keep yourself out of trouble and don't mislead your viewers. They may not be very happy landing on a sales site that provides no benefit for what they were searching for.
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  • Profile picture of the author cheech1981
    Hi everyone and thanks for the replies. I agree that being careful is important and haven't bought a domain yet, but I had an idea and was curious. I definitely agree not to give a false impression about information (regardless of whether it is related to a govt agency or anything else), so it's important to have clear notifications about that. I realize I'll have to research this further but I've seen some pretty knowledgeable responses to legal questions like this on other threads so I figured it would be a good jumping off point. Thanks again!
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