Can a Three Letter Domain Be a Typo?
Thursday, October 8th, 2009
Dun & Bradstreet wins DBN.com domain name.
Here’s an interesting UDRP domain arbitration decided by a National Arbitration Forum panelist.
Dun & Bradstreet Corporation, which operates DNB.com, filed for arbitration against DBN.com. The domain owner didn’t respond to the complaint and lost the case. It didn’t help that his parking page at DBN.com has links for products related to Dun & Bradstreet.
What’s interesting is that D&B claims the respondent is engaging in typosquatting:
Complainant contends that Respondent is intentionally attempting to attract Internet users to its confusingly similar domain name for financial gain by creating a likelihood of confusion with Complainant’s WWW.DNB.COM and DNB.COM marks. The disputed domain name’s resolving website contains click-through links which promote Complainant’s competitors in the financial services industry. The Panel presumes that Respondent is profiting from such use. Therefore, the Panel concludes that Respondent has engaged in bad faith registration and use of the disputed domain name…
We usually think of typosquatting as being more obvious than this. Indeed, it’s hard to believe that a three letter .com domain could be considered a typo at all. I suppose it depends on the use. If the owner of the domain had parked it but included links to unrelated services, it would be difficult for Dun & Bradstreet to prove any sort of malice. In fact, I doubt they would have tried to get the domain name had that been the case.
Further Reading:
- Typo? CanadaDrugs.com vs. CanadaRugs.com
- Nationnal.com and Natiional.com – One is a Trademark Typo, the Other Isn’t
Tags: National Arbitration Forum, udrp
Can a Three Letter Domain Be a Typo? – http://tinyurl.com/ylrxltd
omg! they didnt even defend such an amazing LLL domain???
most domainers would kill for that domain
[...] Domain Name Wire » News » Can a Three Letter Domain Be a Typo … [...]
this is scary
but really weird the owner not resonded at all what a shame
Andrew, Is there anyone with clout in the domain business or any organization doing something about this ridiculous decisions?
Another three letter domain claim in process being handeled by WIPO is a claim by Plastic Logic inc. for the name QUE.com, “que” is spanish for “what”. Is there a way to know what the claim is? because I saw the website and don’t see anything illegal about it.
RT @dnnews: Can a Three Letter Domain Be a Typo? – http://tinyurl.com/ylrxltd
Very scary. Imagine the increase in number of challenges when gTLDs are introduced.
I hope this doesn’t set a precedent given that the owner didn’t even try to defend himself. Very strange that they just let it go.
I think there is defintely a business purpose to parking domains – however you have got to draw the line when it comes to passing off and causing a drastic loss to competitor through unfair means.