Florida Personal Injury Firm Sues Over Strangely Similar Website
Lawyers at the Florida personal injury law firm Gordon & Doner stumbled on a surprising online find: There were two versions of its website.
The Florida law firm did something about it—they filed a trademark infringement suit against the Web host for the knockoff site and the still-unknown copier, the Daily Business Review reports.
The knockoff version of the website fortheinjured.com was being used by someone posing as a British law firm, but it was strangely similar to the original version, the Daily Business Review says. The knockoff site had mostly the same wording, design and logo as the Florida firm, and the same lawyers were pictured, with a notable exception. There was no photo of firm co-founder Robert Gordon, who appears in advertising and is the public face of the law firm.
Lawyer Adam Doner was pictured on the site, maslinassociates.com, although his name was changed to Evans Maslin. “It’s really strange,” Doner told the Daily Business Review. “Talk about identity theft. The public needs to be aware of this. I can’t believe we’re the only one this has happened to.”
The lawyers are puzzling over the motive, the story says. It could be an effort by a competitor to knock Gordon & Doner down in the Google search results. Or it could be an attempt to confuse and discourage would-be clients.
The Webhost, GoDaddy.com, took down the knockoff after the suit was filed.
