Am I allowed to use the term &quot;facebook&quot; as a keyword in the &lt;head&gt; section of my website? I am planning to build a Facebook-related webapp. Judging from Quora: Can I use Facebook word in my domain? and the list of WIPO cases of domains containing &quot;facebook&quot; I'm not allowed to use the word &quot;facebook&quot; or &quot;FB&quot; in the domain name I'll register for this app. But when I launch this app I want to make sure that search engines like Google understand that this web app is about Facebook. To make that happen I plan to use the word &quot;Facebook&quot; in my website description and in the keywords list of my website. My question is: Am I allowed to do this or would I be infringing on the Facebook trademark?
The Quora statement that the word &quot;facebook&quot; cannot be used in a domain name without permission is incorrect, or at least too broad. If a site or app is intended to work with Facebook, it may say so. However it may not use the word &quot;Facebook&quot; whch is trademark, in such a way as to suggest that it is an official Facebook product, or that it is endorsed, authorized, or sponsored by the makers of Facebook, or to cause confusion with the original Facebook. Whether a domain name containing &quot;facebook&quot; does that depends on the details. There are multiple precedents for criticism sites. A domain such as &quot;facebooksucks.com&quot; would not be trademark infringement, and there is caselaw to support this. But that is not what might be wanted here. Perhaps &quot;unofficialfacebookhelper.com&quot; would suffice. But to return to the question asked, use of a word in the hypertext metadata in the &quot;Head&quot; element is a reasonable way of indicating that the site is to be used in connection with Facebook, but there would need to be some additional notice or disclaimer making it very clear to any user that the site is in no way affiliated, endorsed, authorized, or sponsored by the makers of Facebook. The use of a trademark to identify another product with which a given product works is known as nominative use. The law specifically allows it, providing it is not done in such a way as to cause confusion, or to falsely suggest sponsorship, approval, or some relationship that does not exist. However, large corporate trademark owners are known to claim more rights than the law allows them. Such owners may try to suppress nominative use that they hae not approved, although they could not win a trademark lawsuit over such use. US Law 15 U.S. Code § 1125 (c)(3) provides the relevant part: The following shall not be actionable as dilution by blurring or dilution by tarnishment under this subsection: (A) Any fair use, including a nominative or descriptive fair use, or facilitation of such fair use, of a famous mark by another person other than as a designation of source for the person’s own goods or services
without my permission ... is just not true - you granted permission for your posts to be forwarded, subject to the privacy settings you set, when you agreed to Facebook’s terms. Specifically 3.3.
If you are using just the names, there is no issue - you can't copyright a fact. If you are using actual images (you appear to say you are not, but you also asked "Am I allowed to include images of Google Maps) - then the answer is still yes within your usage case - provided you attribute them to Google. If you look at this link it specifies that you are OK to use this in Reports and Presntations, Books which are not guidebooks and which have less then 5000 copies and presentations. If you are using them online, you need to use the imbedded versions (ie you can't just screenshot them - you need to link to them). If you are still unsure, you can contact streetview-academic@google.com to request specific permission.
Can a city request deletion of all personal data that uses a certain domain for logins? Well, they can, but they have no legal backing to make it happen. Their chances of succeeding are about as good as me requesting a Ferrari, a Yacht and a Mansion. I can make that request. People will laugh. I will not get it. I'm a little worried that I shouldn't allow certain domains to be used as logins in the first place, especially ones that might be school related You have no way to know who owns what email address. And it's none of your business. Your only interest should be in whether the address is owned by the person that is creating the account. You probably already do that by sending a confirmation link to the email address when people sign up. I'd like to have some idea for future reference if there's any case where the GDPR would require me to comply with such a request The only way you have to comply with such a request is if the owner can prove their identity. As far as I understood, the &quot;Finnish city&quot; was three degrees away from that. They could not provide any proof they are who they said they are, they could not provide a finite list of accounts they claimed to own and they could not even provide proof they own those accounts. They literally just wrote an email with zero legal meaning. I want to figure out the right way to reply to emails like this one The correct way to handle this is have a feature on your website where the account owner can delete their own account. GDPR compliant. Then you make a text template explaining how to use that feature and reply with that template to every request, no matter how stupid (like this case) they are. If they cannot identify themselves to you by proving they have access to their &quot;own&quot; email, they have no business wasting your time. Legally, they could provide you with a different method of identification. In case of a Finnish school, that would probably need to be power of attorney from all children's legal guardians and a specific way to identify the accounts that is consistent with the data given (for example if they entered their full name and address on your website). You would probably in your rights to demand a certified translation if it's all in Finnish. Apart from the fact that you as a private US citizen have no real means to check the validity of all that paperwork, personally, if I saw hundreds of pages of certified translated paperwork, I would probably just comply. Not sure it it were actually enough, but it certainly gets an A+ for effort to delete data from a private website. But a real lawyer might give better advice with a real case on their hands. Is deleting the data actually more of a legal liability than not deleting it in some cases? (People shouldn't be able to delete other people's accounts.) Indeed. You should not delete people's data because a random punk on the internet sent you an email. You need to identify who the request is from and if they are allowed to make such a request. Whether you have a legal duty to actually keep data, is up to you or your lawyer to find out. It depends on your data and laws. It is perfectly legal to make a website with a textfield that deletes any data you enter after a second. Destruction of data you own is only a problem if you break other laws with it. For example the IRS might not be amused if you destroyed invoices and other proof of taxable income. &quot;Some dude claimed I must in an email&quot; is not going to fly with them. That said, again, please, identify who you deal with, find out if their claim is valid. Don't do stuff because random internet punks write you an email. Because the next mail you get, will be from a Nigerian Prince. Please wisen up before opening that one. People on the internet, through stupidity or malice, might not have your best interests at heart. Don't believe random emails.
My gut response without really analyzing it (which is honestly what a lot of these cases boil down to in the end) is that the proposed name would imply an affiliation with the company that does not exist. A case challenging that name could be expensive and come out either way. Instead, "The [Wife's Name] Toy Museum" with descriptive material in brochures and on a website saying that the exhibits were manufactured by "Toy Company", which is a nominative use that does not imply an affiliation with the Company would be a wiser move.
General Rules The rules on this vary somewhat by country. In some counties the is no trademark protection unless a mark is formally registers. In others use &quot;in trade&quot; offers a degree of protection even in the absence of registration. The US follows the second rule. Some of Europe follows the first. But in pretty much all countries trademarks (aka trade marks) are only protected when they are &quot;used in commerce&quot; and are only protected against other uses &quot;in commerce&quot;. This mans that a phrase or design or other possible mark is only protected when it is functioning as a mark, that is it is used by the maker to identify or advertise a product or service (hereafter I use &quot;product&quot; to mean either or both). Moreover a mark is only protected when an alleged infringer uses the mark (or a similar mark) in such a way that people might reasonably be confused into thinking that the infringer's product comes from the same source as the products of the owner of the mark, or is approved, sponsored, or endorsed by the owner of the mark. A simple literary or pop-culture reference is normally not trademark infringement. This is both because a well-known phrase is not usually protectable as a mark at all, and because a reference to it is normally not infringement, even if the mark is protected. The likelihood of confusion is a very important concept in trademark cases. Examples The phrase &quot;Elementary, my dear Watson&quot; Is often used as a reference to the Sherlock Holmes stories and novels. But it was never used to brand or advertise those stories, so its use in a novel or video game now would not be infringement. Even if a game used that phrase as a title, it would not be infringement, because the phrase is not protected. All this would still be true even if the Sherlock Holmes stories were still being published. The tagline &quot;In space, no one can here you scream&quot; was used extensively to advertise the movie Alien. It had some protection as a mark (in the US), and might well have been registered for fuller protection (I haven't checked the US register of trademarks, or any other for this phrase). A game titled with this phrase might well be infringing. A game where a character speaks the phrase at some point probably will not be infringing. Caution All that said, exactly where the limits of infringement lie depend on the detailed factual situation. Before investing sizable amounts of money or time and effort on such a project, it might be wise to consult a lawyer knowledgeable about trademark law in one's particular jurisdiction, and make sure that the risk of suit is not to great for one's tolerance.
Ideally, you would say something like &quot;Compatible with WhatsApp. Not endorsed or affiliated with WhatsApp.&quot; If you do that, it would be a valid nominative use of the other company's trademark and would face a very low risk of an infringement action.
It is not required. The companies undoubtedly prefer that you include those designations, and they may even write to say that you should, but that is just them doing their due diligence in policing their brands. In the instances you cited, there is probably some agreement between those companies to include those markers. If you don't have such an agreement, there is no obligation to notify the users of your website that some third party has trademarked a name that you mention.