YouTube Social: Can You Redirect Trademarked Domains?

I was reading this piece on how Google is going after YouTube Social for Trademark Infringement and my brain immediately fell down the legalities of certain SEO practices rabbit hole.

So Google is demanding that YouTube Social change its name to something else. But my guess is that there are a ton of sites that are already linking to YouTubeSocial.com.

So let’s say YouTubeSocial changes its name to SocialVision. If you’re YouTubeSocial’s SEO guy, you’re going to recommend 301 directing http:youtubesocial.com to http://socialvisioninc.com. No problemo right?

But what about all those inbound links with “YouTube” in the anchor text?

Nothing SocialVision can do about that, but by 301 redirecting YouTubeSocial.com aren’t they still using the YouTube trademark for commercial purposes?

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