Can I be sued if I have a domain name similar to another website and offer a service that is similar, but not?

[kyle]

Hey, so I want to create a website that has a letters in front of urbanspoon.com. it will be like __urbanspoon.com. It will also be a food review site, but will be dealing with only a specific type of food, but more options. the layout and logo will of course be completely different. Can I get sued for doing this?

[Craig V]

I would think you can get away with "suburbanspoon.com", but not something like "NYC Urbanspoon.com" which clearly uses the same name as opposed to a different word. Certainly the different color, logo, and layout will help.

[Muse]

You're treading a very fine line with that since you're asking if you can just put letters in front of urbanspoon without giving the example that you want to use. This shows that you're trying to "piggyback" on their success so-to-speak and can be used to demonstrate infringement on their brand.

If you have a food review site and use a well-known food review brand in your domain name, you're asking for trouble. Your best bet to beat the competition is to stand apart from it and brand yourself accordingly. You say it will only be dealing with a specific type of food. What type of food will that be? How can you incorporate that into creating your own unique brand identity?

I'm not saying this to discourage you. I am simply a marketing and web professional who doesn't like seeing start-ups makes too many mistakes, especially ones that might get them sued.

[?]

It may not be a good long term strategic decision, while you might siphon off some traffic confusing you for the other site they intended to go to, it eventually might limit your brand's being able to dominate the field later on.

You are probably OK as long as the base words the 2 sites would share are not a trademarked named, (NikeSource.com could be a problem)

Probably the best source wold be the U.S.s Cyber-Squatting laws that you can lookup.

[Amrendra]

No. unless it is trademarked name.
If you are using trademark keyword, they can take you domain anytime