If your business sells, markets, or signs up customers online, a large share of your legal exposure runs through a handful of places: the domain names customers type, the checkout flow that forms the contract, the social accounts that carry the brand, and the terms every user accepts. Our Internet and E-Commerce service handles the legal work in each of those places. We recover domains from cybersquatters, build compliant subscription and checkout flows, structure influencer programs, and draft terms of service that hold up when a plaintiff challenges them. Our founding partner was a software engineer before law school, so we read DNS records, registrar data, and front-end flows as easily as contracts, and our advice accounts for how the site actually works.
The Scope Of Online Business Law
Online business law pulls from several bodies of law at once. Trademark law under the Lanham Act governs domain names and brand misuse on platforms. Contract law decides whether clickwrap and sign-in-wrap agreements bind users, and the Federal Arbitration Act governs the dispute clauses inside them. The FTC Act, the Restore Online Shoppers' Confidence Act, and state automatic renewal laws regulate how you advertise, price, and bill. The FTC's Endorsement Guides and its rule on fake reviews and testimonials govern influencer and review programs. Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act and the DMCA safe harbors in 17 U.S.C. § 512 shape your liability for what users post. We work across all of these, so a single launch or campaign gets one coherent review instead of several disconnected ones.
What Each Service Handles
Domain Names covers registration strategy, defensive portfolios, and buying or selling the names your brand needs. UDRP handles complaints and responses before WIPO, the Forum, and other approved providers, the fastest route to transfer a domain registered in bad faith. Domain Disputes covers the broader set of tools, including URS suspensions, Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act suits, and negotiated purchases. E-Commerce addresses checkout contracts, consumer protection, payments, chargebacks, and marketplace obligations such as the INFORM Consumers Act. Social Media covers brand protection on platforms, influencer and creator agreements, FTC disclosure compliance, and account suspensions. Terms of Service covers user agreements, acceptable use policies, arbitration and class waiver clauses, and the presentation choices that decide whether a court will enforce them.
Domain Fights And Online Disputes
Internet disputes are IP and business disputes with a technical layer, which is where our background helps. A UDRP complaint must prove three things: the domain is identical or confusingly similar to your mark, the registrant has no rights or legitimate interests in it, and it was registered and is being used in bad faith. When the goal is money as well as the name, the ACPA allows statutory damages of $1,000 to $100,000 per domain and an in rem action when the registrant hides offshore. Beyond domains, we handle disputes over hijacked or suspended accounts, impersonation and counterfeit storefronts, influencer contract breaches, and consumer class actions that attack your terms, where a well-built arbitration agreement and a clean assent record can decide the case at the motion stage.
Compliance And Contract Work
Most of the value in this service comes before anything goes wrong. We review checkout and subscription flows for clear disclosure of material terms, express consent to recurring charges, and a cancellation method that meets ROSCA and state law. We draft terms of service, refund and shipping policies, acceptable use policies, and marketplace seller agreements, and we set up how they are presented so a court sees reasonably conspicuous notice and an unambiguous act of assent. For brands, we write influencer and creator agreements that cover content ownership, usage rights, exclusivity, and FTC-compliant disclosures, and we prepare social media policies for employees. For domain portfolios, we build a registration plan around your marks and markets and set up monitoring for new infringing registrations.
From Intake To Launch
Engagements start with a look at what you have live or about to launch: the site or app, current terms, checkout screens, influencer contracts, or the domain at issue. For a domain dispute we confirm your trademark rights, pull WHOIS and registration history, preserve evidence of the infringing use, and recommend UDRP, URS, a demand, a purchase, or a lawsuit based on cost and the result you want. A UDRP decision typically issues within about two months of filing. For compliance and drafting work we deliver marked-up screens and draft documents, meet with your product and marketing teams to walk through the changes, and review the final build before it goes live. Ongoing clients get a standing review process for new campaigns and features.
Who Calls Us
Our clients here include online retailers and direct-to-consumer brands, subscription businesses, SaaS and app companies, marketplaces and platforms that host user content, and consumer brands that run influencer programs. Founders call before a launch or a pricing change. Marketing leads call when a campaign involves paid creators or customer reviews. In-house counsel call when a cybersquatter registers a lookalike domain, a platform suspends a revenue-generating account, or a demand letter arrives attacking an auto-renewal practice. We also represent domain registrants who receive UDRP complaints and need a response that shows a legitimate interest or establishes that the complainant is attempting reverse domain name hijacking. We work with clients nationwide, and many domain matters involve registrants and registrars outside the United States.
Fixed Prices For Defined Work
Much of this work is standardized, and we price it that way. A UDRP complaint for a single domain, a terms of service and acceptable use package for a new site, an influencer agreement template, or a checkout and subscription compliance review each comes as a flat fee with a defined scope and turnaround. Provider filing fees, such as those charged by WIPO or the Forum, are passed through at cost and stated up front. ACPA litigation, class action defense, and disputes with platforms or business partners are scoped and estimated in writing after we review the facts, with the estimate broken out by phase. Call us before you launch a site, change your billing model, or start a creator program, and as soon as you find a domain or account trading on your brand.
