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IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURTFOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIAJ.K. HARRIS & COMPANY, LLC, a SouthCarolina limited liability company,Plaintiff,v.STEVEN H. KASSEL, an individual;and FIRSE TAX, INC., a CaliforniaCorporation, d/b/a TAXES.COM,Defendants./No. 02-0400 CWORDER GRANTINGIN PART ANDDENYING IN PARTPLAINTIFF’SAPPLICATION FORA PRELIMINARYINJUNCTIONPlaintiff J.K. Harris & Company, LLC moves for apreliminary injunction enjoining Defendants from 1) using thetrade name “J.K. Harris” on Defendants’ “taxes.com” website; 2)publishing defamatory, untrue or misleading information aboutPlaintiff;3) using HTML code and computer programming techniques to divertInternet users looking for Plaintiff’s website to Defendants’website; and 4) using any editorial position at Internetdirectories to promote Defendants’ business and interfere withPlaintiff’s business.The Court issued a temporary restraining order on February
 
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26, 2002 and set a hearing date for February 15, 2002. Bystipulation of the parties, that date was extended. The matterwas heard on March 15, 2002. Having considered all of thepapers filed by the parties and oral argument on the motion, theCourt grants in part Plaintiff’s motion for a preliminaryinjunction and denies it in part.BACKGROUNDA.The PartiesPlaintiff claims to be the largest tax representation andnegotiation company in the United States. It specializes innegotiating with the IRS to eliminate or reduce assessed taxliability and to work out favorable payment terms. Declarationof Monica Linder (Linder Dec.), 4. Defendants are directcompetitors with Plaintiff in the business of taxrepresentation. Id. 5.B.Facts Relevant to False Representation ClaimsBoth Plaintiff and Defendants advertise their services onthe Internet. Plaintiff’s universal resource locator (URL) iswww.jkharris.com. Defendants’ URL iswww.taxes.com.Defendants have published on their website unfavorable information aboutPlaintiff. Prior to the issuance of the TRO in this case,Defendants’ website contained a page entitled “JK HarrisEmployees Tell of Wrongdoing While Complaints Pile Up.” On thispage, Defendants describe a federal investigation of Plaintiff,criticize Plaintiff’s business practices, and republishanonymous statements about Plaintiff from individuals identifiedas former customers or former employees of Plaintiff.
 
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3Defendants also solicit information critical of Plaintiff forpublication on their website. Plaintiff contends that numerousstatements attributable both to Defendants and to thoseanonymously contributing to Defendants’ website are false andmisleading.C.Facts Relevant to Consumer Confusion ClaimMany consumers looking for services on the Internet use a“search engine” to identify the URL of the company they areseeking. When a user enters a name into a search engine, thesearch engine provides a list of websites that contain that nameand, presumably, the information sought by the user. Plaintiffalleges that Defendants have manipulated the websitearchitecture of taxes.com so that when a consumer searches forPlaintiff’s website, Defendants’ website is among those websitesdisplayed. Specifically, Plaintiff contends that this was doneby a) “creating keyword density” using Plaintiff’s trade nameand permutations thereof; b) creating “header Tags” and“underline Tags” around sentences that use Plaintiff’s tradename; c) using Plaintiff’s trade name as a “keyword” in numerousareas of the website;d) using various “hot links” to websites with information aboutPlaintiff. Declaration of Tony D. Spencer (Spencer Dec.) 5;Supplemental Declaration of Tony D. Spencer (Spencer Supp. Dec.)¶ 4.On October 23 and 24, 2001, Plaintiff conducted a series ofsearches for the name “JK Harris” on eleven different Internetsearch engines. In one of eleven searches, Defendants’ website
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