Is it illegal for a competitor to buy the domain name of your company?

Question

I work as a bail bondsman in the state of Florida. I recently made a web site, www.celticbail.net. The name of my company is Celtic Bail Bonds, LLC. The reason I didn't do celticbailbonds.com is because I wanted something short and easy to remember. My uncle was messing around and typed in www.celticbailbonds.com and found out that a local bail bondsman, Tom Culbreth Bail Bonds, has registered both Celticbailbonds.net and .com, and has linked those domains to his web site. This is a very sneaky thing he has done and Im hoping I can do something about this, as he could be stealing business from me this way. Is this illegal, and is there anything I can do about this to get him to stop or sue him?

Answer 1

No there is nothing you can do against him.

There are rules about such things preventing the registration of domain names only to have other business pay you for releasing them, but in this particular situation your competitor actually has a legitime business project (selling bail bonds) so that would be allowed.