Yahoo! Inc. Files Cybersquatting Complaint Against Adult Dating Sites Using Tumblr And Flickr Names

Yahoo Inc. filed a cybersquatting claim Friday, accusing the owner of three adult dating websites of creating domain names too similar to its brands. The sites use the name of Yahoo-owned sites such as Flickr and Tumblr in their domain names, which redirect to dating sites owned by a Dutch company.

Yahoo filed the complaint Friday with the World Intellectual Property Organization, according to the adult industry publication XBiz, claiming the sites were exploiting its brands. Cybersquatting, or domain squatting, is the act of registering or using a domain name with the intent of profiting from someone else’s trademark.

The sites named in Yahoo’s claim are TumblrSexDating.nl, TumlrSexDating.nl and FlickrDating.nl. All three currently redirect to dating sites hosted by Totaaldomein in the Netherlands.

The identity of the owner was not revealed in the complaint. Yahoo acquired the popular microblogging network Tumblr for $1 billion in 2013 and the image-storage site Flickr for $25 million in 2005.

Facebook Inc. won a $2.8 million cybersquatting suit in 2013 against a group of domain-name operators that registered a slew of uniform resource locators, or URLs, containing misspelled versions of the social network.