Great-West’s Empower Sues Web Domain Owner for Cybersquatting

Great-West Life & Annuity Insurance Co. and its Empower Retirement unit accuse a closely held Illinois company and its president of using the Empower.com domain name to “demand a multi-million dollar purchase price” from the companies, according to a new suit filed in federal court in Chicago.

Empower Geographics Inc. and its president and secretary Alex Machinis have caused “actual confusion” of the plaintiffs’ customers and threatened to sell the Empower domain to Great-West’s competitors “and professional cybersquatters,” according to a complaint filed Wednesday in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois.

Great-West merged three financial service ...