Re:Plumber vs. programmer: a face-off over an online directory
by pbhjpbhj on Wednesday November 04, 2009 @06:03PM
(#922812)
It's "passing off" a slightly weaker part of trademark law. They are pretending to the public that their service is that of someone else.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passing_off - written from the UK perspective, it's certainly part of EU TM law too, but I don't know enough about US TM law to comment properly on this.
Yes, when its a material misrepresentation of the facts. Putting up a false phone number for a company is not only unethical, its fraudulent. To me, the element that makes the deceitful nature of their actions clear is that they didn't contact the business owner first.