PerezRevenge: Is Perez Hilton the Victim of a Reverse Domain Hijacking?

Posted by Eriq Gardner

Blogger-personality Perez Hilton is used to being on the receiving end of litigation. But today he's suing the operators of a website who he claims are trying to piggyback off of his famous name. In this complaint filed in U.S. District Court in California, Hilton (born Mario Lavandeira) is suing Infuse and several individuals behind perezrevenge.com, a Hollywood gossip blog that has a similar look to the original and, of course, uses Perez in its domain name.

Hilton is famous for posting photos of stars and marking them up with his own special form of snark. He's been sued by celebrity photo agencies X17Online and PhotoNews for publishing copyrighted photos without permission. (The case with X17 was settled.)

In Hilton’s complaint against Infuse, he alleges unfair competition, federal dilution of trademark, unfair trade practices, and violation of the Anti-Cybersquatting Consumer Protection Act. He seeks injunctive relief and is represented by Bryan Freedman at Freedman & Taitelman in Los Angeles.