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Competitor Sues Experian, Says It’s Cybersquatting

Credit report companies spar over domain names.

Adaptive Marking LLC has sued ConsumerInfo.com, an Experian company, over its use of the FreeCreditScore.com domain name.

Adaptive Marketing uses the domain names FreeScore.com and FreeTripleScore.com. You’re probably familiar with TV commercials for the latter domain, in which people are asked to say “Free Triple Score dot com” three times fast.

ConsumerInfo.com bought the FreeCreditScore.com domain name around October 2009, according to the suit, and then launched a $10-$15 million advertising campaign to promote the brand. It was a replacement for the company’s FreeCreditReport.com marketing push, popularized by a poorly singing rock band. (Incidentally, this change in branding might affect the value of CreditCheck.com and FreeCreditCheck.com, which sold for $3 million in 2007.)

Adaptive Marketing alleges that FreeCreditScore.com infringes on its marks for FreeScore.com and FreeTripleScore.com. Among Adaptive’s claims is that this violates the U.S. Anti-cybersquatting Consumer Protection Act.

This seems like a stretch, as “Free Credit Score” is a very generic term, and probably couldn’t be trademarked in its own right. “Free Score” and “Free Triple Score” are more distinctive since they don’t describe the service.

You can read the complaint here (pdf).

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