In one of the first cases involving the ACPA, E. & J. Gallo Winery, owner of the registered mark “Ernest and Julio Gallo” for alcoholic beverages, sued Spider Webs Ltd. for
using the domain name Ernestandjuliogallo.com. Spider Webs Ltd. was a domain name
speculator that owned numerous domain names consisting of famous company names.
The Ernestandjuliogallo.com Web site contained information on the risks of alcohol
use, anti-corporate articles about E. & J. Gallo Winery, and was poorly constructed.
The court concluded that Spider Webs Ltd. was in violation of the ACPA and that its
actions constituted dilution by blurring because the Ernestandjuliogallo.com domain
name appeared on every page printed off the Web site accessed by that name, and
that Spider Webs Ltd. was not free to use this particular mark as a domain name (E.
& J. Gallo Winery v. Spider Webs Ltd., 2001). In August 2009, a court upheld the largest
cybersquatting judgment to date: a $33 million verdict in favor of Verizon against
OnlineNIC, an Internet domain registration company that had used over 660 names