Legal Action to Defend NFP’s Name

A Not for Profit that fights violence against women is considering taking legal action against a male rights group that has been using an almost identical name to them.

White Ribbon National Executive of Engagement and Partnerships, Fayssal Sari, told media that he was aware of at least one person accidentally making a donation to the “fake” site.

Using the domain name whiteribbon.org.au, the anti-violence organisation is concerned that a website set up by a group called A Voice for Men, whiteribbon.org, is too similar to theirs.

The Voice for Men website has been set up to “fill an information void about domestic violence that is detrimental to our society” according to the group’s founder Paul Elam.

The group claims that feminism is creating more sexism and has posted articles stating that women’s shelters are “hotbeds of gender hatred”.

"There's potential for some serious impact and that does concern us," Fayssal Sari said.

"Any attempt to encourage donations to this non-bona fide organisation could constitute fraud. Our legal advice is that there is possible fraud in intellectual property infringement, particularly around the branding and use of the ribbon.

"We have more than 2000 ambassadors nationwide. For this site to come up and undermine what these good men are doing is really disappointing."

But Elam said he was preempting any legal action and asked his followers to donate to A Voice for Men to help them pay for legal bills.

“Whiteribbon.org has been subjected via email and many comments on the Internet to thinly veiled threats of legal action against us for using the name “White Ribbon” in association with raising awareness of facts about domestic violence. We fully expect that one or more of these threats will indeed materialize into litigation,” Paul Elam said.

“To make it clear to all visitors here, whiteribbon.org was legally established to fill an information void about domestic violence that is detrimental to our society. It is funded entirely by A Voice for Men, an activist website dedicated to raising public consciousness about men and boys.

“Due to the ongoing threats of legal action against us, we have dedicated our donation button at whiteribbon.org to one purpose, and that is to fight for our legal right to publish under the domain name we lawfully own and to exercise our freedom of speech by continually adding new information to the site — under its current name.

“All donations to this whiteribbon.org will be placed into our legal war chest to defend those rights.”