Think good intentions and a hobby can't get you into trouble? Consider the story of Ritchie and Garth. Ritchie Sinclair and Garth Cole are childhood friends. Ritchie is an artist with a love of native art. Garth is an economics officer for the City of Toronto. The two share a history of community service and a vision for giving every Canadian a home on the Web. Not a bad idea. But a costly one. They're now being sued for more
than $500,000.

Their idea involves creating a network of online community centres primarily in the form of regional Web sites. Each local site would provide residents with free services -- such as e-mail, discussion forums and personal home pages -- and help area businesses take advantage of the Net by providing an array of communication services at cost. They'd operate the sites on a not-for-profit basis under the name "Friendship Enterprises."

They decided to call the network Canada2, the 2 symbolizing a second or parallel community in cyberspace. In keeping with the "2" theme, they registered as domain names the "2.com" versions of provinces, regions and cities. That included Toronto2.com for the Toronto site, which they entitled Toronto2. They started with the site for their hometown, Toronto, and hoped to recruit volunteers to take the idea nationwide.

But in registering Toronto2.- com, they've stepped on some toes. They're being sued by a partnership called Tor- onto.com.

Toronto.com is made up of some pretty big players, including the publisher of the Toronto Star and Bell ActiMedia, which publishes the Yellow Pages. The partnership is the business of developing Internet city guides and was lucky enough to obtain the ".com" domain names of several cities.

Having landed such prime domains as Toronto.com, it's using them for commercial sites showcasing attractions and services in those cities.

The partnership is now claiming to have trademark rights in Toronto.com and is objecting to others using similar domain names for what it sees as similar city-related sites. It argues that, in selecting Toronto2.com as their domain name, Ritchie and Garth are engaging in "passing off." Passing off means taking advantage of Toronto.com's goodwill by deliberately misrepresenting Toronto2 as being associated with Toronto.com.

Toronto.com admits to having entered into an undisclosed number of settlements with owners of other Web sites with similar domains. But because of confidentiality constraints, it can't talk about them, so we don't know what ended up happening to these sites.

Most of the owners of the targeted domains were likely unprepared to engage in legal battle. But Ritchie and Garth believe they're in the right and are choosing to defend, rather than try to settle, their suit.

Although they've defeated an application for a preliminary injunction that would have temporarily prevented them from using the Toronto2.com domain -- or, for that matter, anything similar to Toronto2.com -- they're now in limbo awaiting an expected five-day trial within the next year.

What's troubling about this case is the attempt to monopolize a word as commonly used as the name of a city. Anyone creating a Web site for or about a city will want to include the city's name in its domain name. But accepting Toronto.com's arguments would mean that if "city.com" were taken, nobody else could set up a city-related site by using a city-related ".com" domain.

Based on the case law, the argument is weak. As a mark, Toronto.com consists primarily of a geographic name and is largely descriptive of the contents of the site. Such marks tend to receive narrow protection under the law because of concerns with granting exclusive rights over commonly used words.

So, seeing as the law may not be on its side, why is Toronto.com proceeding with its suit? Why, in other words, would the owners of a site attracting 96,000 page views a day sue a couple of guys developing a community site in their spare time for the exorbitant sum of half a million dollars?

Maybe they see it as a legitimate commercial threat. Or, maybe it will send a message and because, given what's at stake, most people wouldn't be prepared to fight back.

Lesia Stangret is a lawyer with Smith Lyons in Toronto specializing in Internet and e -commerce law.
LStangret@Smithlyons.ca.

RELATED SITE:

Toronto.com
A major portal site for Toronto as well as a flagship for the Toronto Star.

Toronto2.com
This fairly slow-loading, not for profit site is fighting for its domain life.