See, what domain sellers won't tell you is that domain name you are purchasing or have purchased can possibly infringe on trademark rights and you can lose that domain name or even worse.

Trademark and servicemark laws apply not only off-line but on-line as well and they even apply to domain names.

Now, a trademark generally applies to goods where as a servicemark applies to services. For purpose of this article I will refer to trademarks as same rules apply.

A trademark can be a word, name, symbol, or device and it is used to distinguish and indentify goods and services from one person or company from that of another.

The purpose of a trademark is to prevent confusion in eyes of consumer relating to particular goods and services. Basically, they are in place to prevent unfair competition.

So with that said, just because you purchased a particular domain name it does not necessarily mean you have exclusive rights to it.

If there is a trademark in your domain name, mark owner has a legal right to send you a "cease and desist" letter and possibly take that domain name away from you.

If you don't believe a word I've said so far then I offer myself as proof because it happened to me. I recently lost one of my domain names under this exact same circumstance.

For legal reasons I can't tell you domain name as I agreed to make no further references to it, but there were two words in my domain name that were associated with a trademark.

Los Angeles has a new honor to celebrate - becoming world's first city to have its own unique internet address .la

Offering same functionality as a .com address and sanctioned by Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), internet's de facto governing body, .la addresses will be available to all Los Angeles residents and businesses.

Well known brand names such as www.yahoo.la and www.rolex.la and in this City of Stars many personal names like www.madonna.la and www.arnie.la are already registered. Independent forecasts suggest up to one million .la names will be registered over coming years, as L.A. has over 300,000 registered businesses and 10 million citizens. Plus, there are many millions more worldwide who identify with LA and Hollywood lifestyle.