Sues Franchisee Gripe Site — Sylvan Learning

Firm states former franchisee created site to defame it.

Tutoring and SAT test prep franchisor Sylvan Learning has sued the domain name SylvanFranchiseIssues.com for violating the anti-cybersquatting act.

The firm alleges (pdf) the site was set up by a former franchisee in which it is involved in litigation.

Finding the alleged owner of the site was no modest feat. The suit details Sylvan Learning’s attempts to track down the owner, starting with an inquiry to eNom’s whois privacy service. That lead the firm to an address in London. A contact there stated he used to offer a service where people could use his address when registering domain names. The trail then moved to India and then to a former franchisee in Ohio.

The site’s owner allegedly did more that just create the site to peeve Sylvan. He allegedly forwarded web traffic to the site from Sylvan’s corporate offices to competitor Huntington Learning Centers. He also allegedly bought Google Adwords for his site when someone searched for “Sylvan Franchises”.

Once tracked down, the site’s owner claimed that Sylvan had violated SylvanFranchiseIssues.com’s (SFI) terms of services by visiting the site:

the Terms of Use “prohibit employees, related parties or independent contractors of Sylvan Learning Inc., or any of its affiliates or related parties from accessing the SFI website.”

Clever.

If you visit the domain name right now it gives an error that the site is right now in maintenance mode.