Anti-HOA Website

[MissAnnie]

What is the name of your state?What is the name of your state? NC

Our Homeowner's Association started a website in order to improve communication with the residents in the community. The very disgruntled ex-president promptly established an anti-HOA website and uses it to make accusations and personal attacks against the present Board members- Our website addresses are exactly the same, with the exception that we are .com and he is .org. His last post, though was against his neighbor(he posted their name and unit #), and included some private issues about their personal lives. Are his rantings protected under freedom of speech, or do we have any legal right to have this stopped? Also, in researching anti-HOA websites I found that others state that they are not the official HOA website, but his has no such disclaimer.

 

[davezan]

You're probably referring to the domain name since, as you say, yours ends in
.com while his ends in .org. A domain name and a website are 2 separate and
different things.

Anyway, if your group has a registered trademark or can prove common law,
then retain a seasoned attorney to use either the Uniform Domain-Name
Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) or the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act
(ACPA) to legally wrest control of the domain name from him. Between the 2,
UDRP is cheaper and takes a shorter time to resolve such disputes.

And since both you and the other party are obviously in the US, one of the
UDRP's dispute providers is the National Arbitration Forum.

Otherwise, if you can't prove common law or you don't have a registered TM,
then no you can't wrest control of those domains.