Expired domain names show disconnect between corporate functions.
Corporation Service Company (CSC), a brand protection company, released a study today about the expenses incurred by brand holders to get domain names through UDRP. The study suggests companies have spent $220 million getting domains back through UDRP, and that it would have only cost $1.1 million had they proactively registered the domains.
But what I found more interesting is how many domains won through UDRP have been allowed to expire:
Of the domain names that were won and handed back to the brand owner, almost 4,000 have been subsequently lapsed and are now available for registration. Also, an additional 3,000 domain names were lapsed after they were won and then re-registered – in some cases, by third parties. In fact, CSC found that several companies have disputed the same domain name up to three times because they continued to allow it to lapse.
This shows a major disconnect at companies between three groups:
1. Trademark attorneys that feel they need to get every possible trademark domain name.
2. Brand managers who don’t know what to do with the domains when they get them.
3. Corporate domain managers who are are reactive instead of proactive. Often times they don’t even work in conjunction with the trademark attorneys.
I’ve looked through portfolios of Fortune 500 companies and found that a good portion of their domains don’t resolve. Others are merely forwarded to the company’s home page when they should direct to a specific page on the web site. CSC’s statistics quantify this mismanagement.
Francois says
funy
Dominik Mueller says
Thanks for these very interesting information, Andrew!
M. Menius says
Fascinating statistics. It’s surprising to think that so many domains, aggressively pursued through UDRP, are allowed to lapse. My guess is that the complacency of #3 (“Corporate Domain Managers”) is a huge factor.
Also shocking is the tremendous monetary difference between initial registration fees (1.1 million) and the huge cost of having gone after the domains once registered ($220 million).
domainguy says
well what this shows is 1.brand managers are asleep at the wheel and have no idea the value of a domain.and fail to use direct navigation.every ad executive is a looser fails to recognize the value of direct navigation.2. tm attorneys rip off their clients spending 200 million in legal fees.
this is why every tm attorney needs to be taught a hard lesson charging 300 an hour for legal fees that are worth 50 an hour.
and every tm attorney needs to be taught a lesson in the public arena.
Drew says
Let’s not forget that there are 7000 odd domainers out their with targets on their back because of this.
Here’s one example…
Big corporation buys out competitor.
Big corporation publicly states they are dropping ex-competitor’s brand name.
Innocent domainer registers dropped brand domain for other use.
Big corporation lawyers become upset and UDRP innocent domainer.
Innocent domainer responds to UDRP with copy of public statement from big corporation that they no longer require the brand.
“Arbitrators” ignore the evidence and deem the innocent domainer a “cybersquatter”.
Big corporation does not renew domain and innocent domainer re-reg’s the domain and has now owned the domain for 7 more years, although original UDRP decision still being used as a hammer by other stupid big corporates.
Any UDRP decisions where the complainant is no longer the registered owner of the name in question should not be able to be used as precedence, because their non-ownership is indicative of an incorrect finding.
john andrews says
I was thinking “there are so many hidden gems in this finding, that need to be teased out” and then @Drew above explained one of them.
Clearly, the system doesn’t work given the data on drops/re-registrations. It’s easy to assume there is a disconnect between brand managers and in-house counsel (or attorney) and we know there is, but there is much more involved and the system should learn from this and adapt.
Corporation drops brand, drops name, and then later realizes it costs just a few bucks to hold that old brand hostage forever so no one else can use it. Why not? Currently there is no reason “why not”. Should there be?
della says
so what are the domain names