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One of my Associates e-commerce stores that I own is www.2008software.com which had a high ranking for a few keyword phrases. Recently I found that this site and possibly other e-commerce stores I own as well basically dropped off Google's high indexing for one of the phrases because another web site, whoisdomaintools.com somehow was able to make this a page for their website whois.domaintools.com/2008software.com shown exactly how their url page and Google indexed this site instead with my exact descfiption, headlines, etc. The bottom line is can someone legally use your registered domain name as part of a (URL) page of their site? If not, would you advise suing them and/or blogging about them (I have a blog with over 200,000 monthly readers)?

I sent these jerks a strongly worded email and they sent me some form letter back that didn't address anything and to me is their way of saying F U to me. Am I off based here or should I escalate this to another level, including putting this in my blog and pursuing legal action (they have money galore)? I welcome your opinion. They or someone else could easily do the same to you assuming you have your own registered domain name?

Here's a copy of their form letter for those interested which did not address my complaint of them using my domain name for what I believe illegally by putting it in theirs.

Hello Sir:

Thank you for your inquiry.

All the information we display on our website is legally-mandated, public information and easily obtainable by anyone from the web. DomainTools is only a third party displaying this information. Historical/cached information is never deleted from the world wide web.

WHOIS services provide public access to data on registered domain names, which currently includes contact information for Registered Name Holders. The extent of registration data collected at the time of registration of a domain name, and the ways such data can be accessed, are specified in agreements established by ICANN for domain names registered in generic top-level domains (gTLDs). For example, ICANN requires accredited registrars to collect and provide free public access to the name of the registered domain name and its nameservers and registrar, the date the domain was created and when its registration expires, and the contact information for the Registered Name Holder, the technical contact, and the administrative contact.

It is unfortunate that your Registrar consultant did not explain to you in detail the privatization options that are available to everyone, when they first register a domain on the world wide web. This would have prevented any record that would potentially contain personal information, from ever having been created. We understand that the records we display may contain personal data, however WE are not responsible for that record having been created.

Going forward you can contact the ICANN registrar listed on your record for information regarding privatization of your whois record. The ICANN registrar may be able to assist you in changing or swapping unlisted numbers or other private contact information.

In addition, you can use our History Block service at [url]http://www.domaintools.com/products/history-block.html[/url] to purchase temporary WHOIS history record privacy. This is not an attempt to receive payment from you as this is only a temporary solution. It will not delete the record from existence as this service will only prevent that information from being accessed on our site.

Information on how to prevent your images from accompanying the WHOIS record can be found at the following URL:

[url]http://www.domaintools.com/webmasters/surveybot.php[/url]

Our position will not change until advised t do so by our own counsel.

Regards,

DomainTools Client Support

IANAL ... but ...

While you can claim your domain name as a trademark, I don't think the way they are using it is any violation of your trademark. 

They are using some information from your site. I doubt it's a copyright violation because it's less than Google will display from your page.  You can, however, block their robot in your robots.txt file:

http://www.domaintools.com/webmasters/surveybot.php

In any case,  it's a problem with Google if their page is listing above yours.  You can use the "Dissatisfied? Help us improve" link at the bottom of Google's search results to report the problem.  But, it'll probably fix itself in a while.  Sometimes pages get a short-term "bump" in the Google results because they are new or the search engine is checking how often they are clicked to determine their relevance.

-- Roger

I know what your saying but for this key phrase I made it part of the site, yada yada yada. In the case of this domain tools website which I guess is not part of whois, thanks for pointing it out to me, if you have your own registered domain, this site is somehow enabling Google to get your private info from them (thank God I privately registered everything), name, address, phone # I think and other stuff.
Google also, and I amsure they've done this to millions of sites as well, also indexed their site with my info because they had the url name at the end. If they had something else following the URL name I doubt it would have registered. Here is how it looked like on Google for the phrase in question:

2008software.com - 2008 Software - Discount Computer Software 2009

2009 Tax Software Discount computer software for antivirus,2009 Turbotax, H&R Block TaxCut, other 2008 software 2009 software, anti spyware.
whois.domaintools.com/2008software.com

All of that was from my site As I said if they put something else following 2008software.com I wouldn't have had a problem with this.

My Amazon and Adsense earnings have nose dived this past week so much from December it isn't funny!