The Baltimore Eagle is a landmark gay-friendly leather fetish bar in Baltimore. After the death of its beloved owner, its Website domain registration temporarily lapsed. That’s when Mario Rallo took advantage and registered it. He said that the leather bar was near and dear to his heart, and that he only wanted to preserve its legacy. But after the Eagle requested the return of its domain name, they were astonished when..
Cybersquatting, according to the United States federal law known as the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act, is registering, trafficking in, or using an Internet domain name with bad faith intent to profit from the goodwill of a trademark belonging to someone else. The cybersquatter then offers to sell the domain to the person who owns a trademark contained within the name at an inflated price, essentially holding it hostage.
According to his Facebook page, Mario Rallo is a Senior Liaison Officer at the Florida Department of Highway Safety. Merriam Webster defines a liaison as a person who establishes and maintains communication for mutual understanding and cooperation.
Friends of the Baltimore Eagle believe what Mario Rallo did was unethical; and we are supporting this Web page to raise awareness about the practice of cybersquatting. To be clear, there is nothing wrong with the practice of reserving a domain name. Frequently, cybersquatters register words or phrases they hope will someday be sought-after. This kind of cybersquatting is speculative and legitimate.
However, the harmful kind of cybersquatting involves intentional bad faith trafficking in domain names that are the same as or confusingly similar to existing trademarks. Such practices are considered..
As long as a cybersquatter owns a given domain name, the trademark owner cannot register its own trademark as the domain name. In this sense, the cybersquatter breaches the fundamental rights of a trademark owner to use its trademark, and that is what happened in the case of our favorite bar and the Cybersquatter Mario Rallo.
If you feel Mario Rallo should return the money he forced out of the Baltimore Eagle, feel free to message him here:
Thank you for your love and support!”
Friends of the Baltimore Eagle
1Christopher R. Perry "Trademarks as Commodities: The 'Famous' Roadblock to Applying Trademark Dilution Law in Cyberspace" (2000) 32 Connecticut Law Review, 1127.