Hi. My name is Mike Filsaime and welcome to MikeFilsaimeSucks.com. Now, you may be wondering why I have a video here at MikeFilsaimeSucks.com, or why I would even own the domain name MikeFilsaimeSucks.com. Those are great questions. Let me tell you why.
Something very interesting happened: when you type in the name Mike Filsaime into Google, a top ten listing (first page ranking) was coming up for the domain name MikeFilsaimeSucks.com. I was very confused. I’d click on it and what I came to find out was very interesting. I came to learn that somebody has realized that my name became a brand. They realized a lot of searches were being done in Google. They knew if they created a domain name with my name and put some content around it, then they could use the word “sucks” like MikeFilsaimeSucks.com, create some controversy, and get a lot of traffic to the website. Guess what? It worked.
Why would somebody do this? They may think it’s about freedom of speech or something like that, and, believe me, I think everybody is entitled to their opinion. But, I think predisposing somebody’s opinion about somebody else is a terrible thing. Even worse than that, this person was putting Google AdSense on the side of his website.
What does that mean? That means that when someone goes to Google and puts in a search phrase, they would type my name in and hit the search button. You would then see (on the website) a bunch of listings and one would be MikeFilsaimeSucks.com. If you were interested in learning some of my products, you would all of a sudden see that and say, “Whoa, if he sucks, let me open up this new page here in a new window.” Then, you would start reading about whatever.
If you don’t know what Google AdSense is, it’s these little ads that would bring you into Google’s network on the side of a website. If somebody clicked one, the person whose website they’re on could make as much as 5 cents or 50 cents or $2 or whatever the case may be.
So, he was now leveraging my brand, getting people looking for information about me, and creating controversy, so that he could profit. That is a terrible thing. I’m going to tell you what I did about it.
Here’s what I did. I contacted him very nicely and I asked him if he would please take the domain name down. I asked him very, very nicely if he would take. You’ll see some of the correspondents on this webpage that I had with this person basically telling me, “This is my right to do so… bring it.”
Quite frankly, it got me a little bit upset so here’s what ended up happening.
I did a good job building a brand, MikeFilsaime.com. I have thousands and thousands of happy customers on the Internet. In fact, if you were to go to Google right now and search Mike Filsaime (or maybe you just did, which is how you got to this website), you would see almost 150,000 pages written about me. Almost everything that I can find is from people who are happy with my products, or talking about how they believe or know or read about my products on the Internet and see me as an expert or someone to follow.
So, it was hurtful for me to see somebody using my name to get traffic to their website so he could profit from it; it just really bothered me.
Here’s what I did.
After I e-mailed him, I told him, “I have no choice but to sue you.” I told him that I had a trademark on my name and he still didn’t want to hear it; it still didn’t matter to him. He said, “Bring it.”
Because of my brand that has done over $25 million in sales over the last several years on the Internet, I sued him for $250,000. As you could imagine, he hired an attorney and his attorney advised him that the best thing to do would be to not risk a lawsuit where he could be liable for $250,000 and that he should turn the domain name over to me. So, that’s why I own the domain name and that’s why this video is here right now.
If you look on this page, you will see the lawsuit where we took this person to court and where we said that we were prepared to sue him for damages should he not comply and turn over the domain name. We also got an agreement that he would no longer do anything with our brand name.
Here are a couple other things that I want to go over with you. I recommend that you do this immediately today: if you have a brand, or your name is a brand, or both, make sure to get a trademark. Do you know a trademark, in some cases, takes up to a year to get? It took me about a year to get a trademark for my name, Mike Filsaime.
If you don’t think you can do it, you absolutely can. If you have proof to show that your name is a brand, and can be used for other people to exploit, or whatever the case is, you have a case to create a trademark. I did.
Here’s what I would tell you to do: go to Google and type in the name of your favorite guru and hit the search button. What you’re going to see is something very interesting. You’re going to see SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages). These are the pages that give out these search engine results. In these SERPs are what’s known as organic listing. The left side of the page is where Google puts relevant information about this person.
I want you to look on the right side where it says “Sponsored Links.” You’re going to see ads. These ads are from anybody that created a free Google AdWords account. They can take your favorite guru or brand that’s not trademarked, put that name in, put what’s called a wild card with the word sucks, scam, con, or don’t do business with.
Now, you’ve built up this brand. Somebody goes in and types your brand into Google and all the good stuff is written about you on the left site, and on the right side Google allows these ads to go on that say your brand sucks, your brand is a scam, your brand is a con, or don’t buy your brand.
When they click on these little ads on the right side, those links go to a new webpage. That person, in many cases (like with me in the past and many of your favorite gurus and experts on the Internet) creates what’s called a wild card tag. Whatever page you go to, it fills that name in with, “Don’t do business with ABC Corp.,” or, “Don’t do business with XYZ Corp.” They go on to tell you that with pre-filled out fake information, “I’ve bought all products from XYZ Corp. (or whatever tag you filled in the search engine box) and I found them to be a scam, they suck, they’re a con,” or whatever else they might say.
Do you understand what happened? Google allows people to take a brand, create an ad, drive traffic, and what do you think is at the bottom of this webpage? One of two things: either their own product or an affiliate product that they are promoting. So, Google is profiting off the tarnishing of your brand. This person is also leveraging your name and profiting off the leverage of your good brand.
Remember, you have happy customers. You built a brand and they come looking for it, then they see that some guys say you suck and that you’re a con. That person clicks on the link, the owner of the site tells the world that you suck and you’re a con, then profits off of it and makes money.
It took me a year to get Google to stop this. I want you to type Mike Filsaime in Google. When you do that, look at the Sponsored Links compared to your other favorite gurus. Your other favorite gurus’ names are still being exploited, most likely, because they didn’t get a trademark.
I got a trademark on my name. It cost me a little bit of money, but I’m protecting myself. You’ll probably see something like, “Gurus suck,” or, “Don’t trust the gurus,” on the side if you type my name into Google. I can deal with that. They can play their little games, but they’re not going to say, “Mike Filsaime sucks,” or, “Mike Filsaime is a con.” Google and those site owners are not going to profit off of my brand.
So, here’s the tip and here’s what MikeFilsaimeSucks.com is all about: it’s to let people know that people with a brand should stand up for their rights and not let people profit on their good name while trashing their name at the same time. Again, I’m all for freedom of speech.
The next thing I want you to do is look up getting a trademark for your brand name. That stops Google, Yahoo!, and MSN from allowing people to use your name inside of a sponsored ad. You cannot use somebody else’s trademark for profit. The next thing that will happen is if anybody uses your name or your trademarked brand and puts sucks or con or whatever next to it inside of a domain name, you have legal rights to protect yourself, especially if they’re using that domain name for profit.
It’s very easy to find out if they’re using that domain name for profit: if there are any links to any other websites where they can profit from, or if they have Google AdWords or banner advertising or anything like that, or even if they’re building a list and getting people to register, it can be shown that they’re using this for profit.
So, I hope you found this video interesting. There are going to be some buttons around here where you can share this site through tweets and Facebook and things like that. I am willing to tell the world that MikeFilsaimeSucks.com is a domain because I know that Mike Filsaime does not suck. As I said I have thousands and thousands of happy customers. I hope you found this video interesting and inspiring and I hope you learned the important lesson on how important it is to get a trademark so you can tell people, “You can’t mess with me because I’ve built a brand and my customers know the truth.”
Thank you very much. I’m Mike Filsaime. If you want any more information about me, simply go to MikeFilsaime.com. Have a great day. Bye.