By Sandra Tanner
For the first time in the history of Utah Lighthouse Ministry, we have had to file a lawsuit. The action was filed on April 25, 2005, in U.S. District Court in Salt Lake City, to prevent the exploitation of the ministry trademark and our personal names, and to ensure that those seeking our information are not misled. The next day the Salt Lake Tribune reported:
A Salt Lake City organization that is critical of the LDS Church filed suit Monday accusing a pro-Mormon foundation of trademark infringement and unfair competition.
The suit by Utah Lighthouse Ministry Inc. [UTLM] accuses The Foundation for Apologetic Information & Research (FAIR) of registering 13 Internet domain names associated with UTLM, including those of founders Jerald and Sandra Tanner, to create confusion. . . .
The alleged cybersquatting—the practice of registering or using Internet domain names with the intent of profiting from the good will associated with someone else’s trademark—takes visitors looking for UTLM publications to a selection of hyperlinks to articles posted on FAIR’s Web site instead, the suit contends. In addition, it says, these internet sites “bear a remarkable resemblance of ‘look and feel’ to the UTLM Web site.” . . .
The legal action seeks transfer to UTLM of the 13 domain names, which were registered in 2003 and 2004 by Allen Wyatt, and triple the unspecified money damages suffered by the ministry. (“Ministry Files Suit Over Web Sites,” Salt Lake Tribune, April 26, 2005)
On Wednesday, April 27, the Deseret News ran a similar article on the suit. Neither paper contacted us for a statement. The thirteen domain names are:
utahlighthouseministry.org
utahlighthouseministry.com
utahlighthouse.org
utahlighthouse.com
utahlighthouse.info
sandratanner.org
sandratanner.com
sandratanner.info
jeraldtanner.org
jeraldtanner.com
jeraldtanner.info
geraldtanner.org
geraldtanner.com
Exhibits 40-46 of the complaint are emails from various people who stumbled across the bogus sites. [See “Complaint” at end of this article.]
Exhibit 40 is an email from a woman who wrote “that when you type in utahlighthouse.com or even utahlighthouseministries.com you’re redirected to an anti-utlm site, which looks EXACTLY like your site!!!” (Complaint, p. 19)
One man wrote “the website utahlighthouse.com is a hacked site parod[y]ing and slamming this site” (Complaint p. 19).
After visiting http://www.utahlighthouse.org another man wrote “I assume you already knew about it, but just in case you didn’t, you really should have a look. If that isn’t illegal manipulation of the image and purpose of your Website, I don’t know what is” (Complaint p. 20)!
In Exhibit 46 a customer wrote “I went to http://www.utahlighthouseministry.com and found a different site, obviously not yours, talk about deceptive, let me tell you” (Complaint p. 21).
Below is a copy of Exhibit 1, our web site home page, and Exhibit 29, one of the web pages of the defendants (as well as screenshots of both web pages). Wyatt’s web sites were specifically designed to mimic the “look and feel” of our official site.
Above: Exhibit 1 (left) and Exhibit 29 (right).
Below: Screenshots of Utah Lighthouse Ministry home page (left) and the defendants’ fake page (right)
(click to view)
All of the sites have now been taken down but that does not resolve the problem of “acts of cybersquatting, trademark infringement, trademark dilution and unfair competition in violation of the laws of the United States of America and the State of Utah.”
Complaint (click to view)
Originally appeared in:
Sandra Tanner, “Ministry Files Lawsuit,” Salt Lake City Messenger, no. 104, June 2005, 8-9.