Amazon.com sues Amazon.gr for copyright theft

Amazon.com is sueing the operator of a Greek Web site, accusing it of stealing its identity.

The suit, filed in the US yesterday, accuses Amazon.gr of mail fraud, wire fraud, and criminal copyright violations. Amazon.gr, which has no connection with Amazon.com, markets itself as Greece’s biggest bookstore.

Amazon.gr managing director The lawsuit singles out Greg Lloyd Smith, of Amazon.gr and his wife, Aikaterini Theochari, both of whom live in Greece. The suit singles out two of Smith's companies, CITI Services, a holding company based in Delaware, and CITI Services, Smith's parent company, which is based in the UK.

Amazon.com claims that the couple approached the online bookstore and tried to sell them a controlling interest in CITI services for $1.63 million.

The effort to get Amazon.com to try to buy their company "was a thinly-veiled shakedown," said an Amazon.com spokesman.

Amazon.gr plans to file its own countersuit against Amazon.com next week. Smith claims he has "irrefutable" evidence that Amazon.com has hacked into the Amazon.gr Web site thousands of times.

Amazon.com said that this will not be the first of these type of suits, which it hopes will fire a serious warning to other cybersquatters.