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This will be interesting to follow as a former agent with the largest Columbus Brokerage registered domain names of his former brokers and then inadvertently had the sites point to his new agency. The company, HER Real Living, is suing saying the real estate agent, David Barlow, was cybersquatting and trying to use the former brokers names and reputations to build his business. Barlow counters that it was a technical glitch that caused the problem and the sites were registered to poke fun and point out weaknesses of his former brokers.

Instead, David Barlow is being sued by HER Real Living, the Columbus area’s largest residential real-estate business, and by its top executives, Harley E. Rouda Jr. and his wife, Kaira Sturdivant-Rouda.
The Roudas say Barlow, who left HER and opened the RE/MAX First Choice office in Columbus two years ago, has tried to profit by using their names and their company’s name and by pretending to be a disgruntled HER agent over the Internet.
They seek an injunction to force Barlow to stop and might seek damages.
“It’s very disappointing that an individual who is holding himself out as a broker and realestate agent … (is) acting this way,” Rouda said.
In the courtroom of U.S. District Judge Edmund A. Sargus Jr. this month, Barlow said he has only been engaging in free speech.
Barlow has bought a number of Web site addresses, known as domain names, that have a connection to the Roudas or HER. His Web sites harleyroudajr.com, harleyroudasr.com and kairasturdivantrouda.com offered information on buying a home through RE/MAX First Choice from May 2 until early June, when the lawsuit was filed, the couple’s attorneys said.
That, the Roudas say, is cybersquatting, which is a violation of federal law. The law prohibits a person from buying a domain name of a person or company and then offering to sell it to the person or company for a profit. The Roudas say the law also prohibits Barlow from taking advantage of their names to steer business to himself.  via The Columbus Dispatch

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