Starting a CompanySucks.com type of website, legal?

- Not use their content/images/logos (Although somehow paypalsucks.com got away with doing it)

My client’s use of the PayPal logo with a slash also is not an infringement. “No reasonable consumer comparing [PayPal’s] official website with [My client’s] site would assume [My client’s] site ‘to come from the same source, or …to be affiliated with, connected with, or sponsored by, [PayPal]. Bally Total Fitness Holding Corp. v. Faber, 29 F. Supp. 2d 1161, 1163-64 (C.D. Cal. 1998). “An individual who wishes to engage in consumer commentary must have the full range of marks that the trademark owner has to identify the trademark owner as the object of the criticism. “ Id. At 1165 n.4.
 


My client’s use of the PayPal logo with a slash also is not an infringement. “No reasonable consumer comparing [PayPal’s] official website with [My client’s] site would assume [My client’s] site ‘to come from the same source, or …to be affiliated with, connected with, or sponsored by, [PayPal]. Bally Total Fitness Holding Corp. v. Faber, 29 F. Supp. 2d 1161, 1163-64 (C.D. Cal. 1998). “An individual who wishes to engage in consumer commentary must have the full range of marks that the trademark owner has to identify the trademark owner as the object of the criticism. “ Id. At 1165 n.4.

Yeah but that's a grey area apparently...

You can profit from it all you want, you just can't do so by promoting directly competing products or services.

Yeah but isn't that the whole point? To offer "alternatives" to the company and profit from AM? I guess I could do Adsense but that will be a few bucks a month, unless the site really takes off.
 
About 4-5 years ago, we had a toll free number that was 1 digit off Linksys routers. So we'd get calls all the time on it. We bought Linksucks.com and would answer as "linksucks" (which they thought we were saying linksys, obviously). They would ask how to fix their router. We would always tell them to do ridiculous things like completely wrapping the router in tin-foil for better reception, or making sure all TV's in the house were on channel 12, or whatever.

At the end of the call we would tell them we we're not linksys and we'd post the recordings on linksucks.com. We had a couple hundred or so phone calls recorded. Pretty funny stuff. I'd always feel bad though, cause they'd always say how grateful they were to be talking to someone in English, and then find out it wasn't them. So, I'd help them fix their problem anyways for wasting 5 minutes of their time.

The point of the site wasn't to slander linksys and recommend competitors though.
 
A while ago there was a story about website stating Ryanair sucks (which it does). Website was up for few years (if remeber correctly) and Ryanair took owner to court because he started to sell leads or advertising airlines (including Ryanair if I remeber correctly). Final was he had to remove some advertising but website could still be up. I might be very wrong with this story as I'm old and of limited brain capacity and never bothered to verify it (read it in some newspaper).