united-states trademark
Can you have a Facebook group with a trademark company&#39;s name?
<p>Can you force a Facebook group to change their name if it matches your trademark?  One group I am in is thinking about changing their name because of this and it is a group of current and former members of that organization. This is within the U.S. and the organization is events and adventures.</p>

<p>Trademarks are all about customer confusion.   The ruling factor is: is a reasonable person likely to confuse the thing with the trademark holder's thing?</p>
<p>However, you're allowed to be <em>referential</em> - for instance say you have a group for former Microsoft employees.  You aren't prohibited from using the term Microsoft. You have a practical reason since it defines what your group is.    Calling themselves &quot;Angry Microsoft Expats&quot; isn't likely to be confused with official Microsoft (even if Microsoft may not be amused), but calling themselves &quot;Microsoft Exit&quot; - <em>see, that kind of sounds like a product</em>.</p>
<p>But here's the thing. A lot of people get confused by free speech.  If the site <strong>stores</strong> content (words, sounds, images, video, haptics)  <em>free speech does not exist</em>. What exists is <strong>freedom of the press</strong>, which is enjoyed by <strong>them who own a press</strong>.  It's like that.  You have no rights. Facebook can put up or delete anything they please, for any reason or no reason at all (e.g. sales rep says &quot;customer will do an ad buy if we delete it&quot;).*</p>
<p>If you don't like that, you can get your own press for $17.99 at GoDaddy.</p>
<p>* Except for a very narrow list of reasons such as &quot;you are black&quot;, but even this has constraints.</p>
