I was checking my email today when I saw I had a very short email that said, in short, “Please see the attached letter”, “Thank-you” and from the “Law Offices of….”

Oh, that can’t be good.  As I continued reading I found that I had just been sent my first cease and desist letter.

To quickly bring those who may be naive about what a C&D letter is. A “Cease and Desist” is a letter drafted usually by an attorney directed toward a recipient (that’s me) asking him (or her) to “stop” or “cease” certain specified action. In this case, it was asking me to stop an apparent trademark infringement and copyright violation. Apparently I have a website that sounds very similar to another popular website in my niche that provides a very similar service.

The letter that I received was long winded and verbose but I’ll summarize what they were asking me to do:

1) Stop my website

2) Turn over all my profits

3) Transfer my domain

This is the funny thing. I went to my Adsense account to find out how much I had to turn over, and noticed that ALL my profits from this domain were: $5.78. Did they want that in a check? Money order? Wire Transfer?

I’ll be completely honest here, I kind of knew, deep down this might have been coming. I mean the domains did sound VERY similar AND the websites did provide a very similar service.

In my defense, there were some KEY differences between the two sites. One, was that the other site actually had business, traffic and made that owner money. My site, on the other hand, had no traffic and has made me, yep you guessed it, no money. The other defense I have is that I own a lot of domains and website similar to the one in question that stretch across MANY different niches.

I have decided to play nice (see my post about karma) and give in to the requested demands. I have moved the website now to a new domain. I’m sure it’ll take me a little while but I my traffic will return. It won’t take long for it to trickle in 2 or 3 a day, just like it was doing before. If they want the $5.78, I’ll guess I’ll give it to them but it seems awfully inefficient.

Lesson: Do a little research before starting any business, especially if it is online. Pick a domain carefully and it might not hurt to consult a lawyer if you have some questions about the legality of it.