AAA gets hands on AAA.net. But it is overstepping its bounds.

American Automobile Association (AAA) has been awarded the domain name AAA.net after filing a lawsuit against its owners. AAA had lost a UDRP arbitration at National Arbitration Forum for the domain name, and then sued the owners of the domain in U.S. District Court, Western District of Pennsylvania.

The National Arbitration Forum got it right — but in this case the defendants’ behavior with other domains made it tough to defend in the court system. AAA noted several other domain names that the defendants had to cough up through UDRP, including Polaroid.net, RadissonSeattle.com, and Micorosft.com.

AAA.net is a generic term and appeared to be used that way in this case; but ultimately it seems that the defendants felt it worthwhile to hand over the domain rather than engage in a long lawsuit.

AAA has been on an arbitration domain name land grab lately, picking up domain names that probably have little value to it and have questionable similarity to AAA, such as adult names.

The company recently won disputes for aaaerotica.com, aaanudes.com, and aaablondes.com, which makes you question if the organization has filed a trademark in the field of use of adult entertainment. It also snagged aaabailbond.us. I suppose AAA may be planning a major expansion of services.

This month AAA also won aaa-major-creditcardsonline.com, a credit card site that has nothing to do with the Association. Sure, AAA offers a branded credit card, but that doesn’t entitle it to any domain name that includes AAA and credit cards, since AAA is a common term used by many businesses. You can also question the value of adding this domain name to its portfolio — was the web site really causing a problem for the association?

Copy of AAA Complaint (pdf)

How a $483 domain name turned into an expensive lawsuit.

I read a lot of lawsuit filings, and many of them leave me scratching my head. Here’s a case in point.

In July, an Lorie Price of Indiana filed a lawsuit against a domain owner along with Oversee.net and DomainSponsor. She alleges that the domain owner is infringing her trademark with the domain name N2Touch.com.

Indeed, Price does appear to have Indiana rights to the term N2Touch. In fact, she used the domain name until she forgot to renew it, at which point the new owner registered the domain name. She contacted the new owner inquiring about the domain, and it was allegedly offered for sale for $483.00. She declined.

According to the lawsuit, the Price’s massage business and the massage referral business previously run on N2Touch.com has withered since the defendants “took control of the name”, thereby forcing her to seek employment outside of Indiana.

Although it’s hard to know the personal circumstances of the plaintiff, something is wrong here.

You would really jeopardize your entire business over $483?

Perhaps it’s on principle that she didn’t buy the domain, but there are other problems. The lawsuit alleges that the plaintiff let the domain lapse in 2008. It actually expired in April 2007. If the loss of the domain name was enough to cause you to basically lose your business, wouldn’t you know exactly when that occurred? And if it was that dramatic, you’d think you’d either pay the $483 or, if it was a matter of principle, file for domain arbitration to get the domain back for a couple grand.

Instead, Price has apparently lost substantial business to the point that she decided to file an expensive lawsuit. (And her lawyers are very confused about domain names and the relationship between the owner and Oversee, and who actually owns the domain. But I won’t go into that here.)

The lawsuit doesn’t say how much Price is seeking in damages, but I suspect it’s a lot.

If you’re curious, here’s a copy of the lawsuit (large pdf).

Sony wins a Walkman domain name, but don’t count on a new web site any time soon.

Sony Corporation has been awarded the domain name Walkman.net in a domain arbitration case at World Intellectual Property Organization.

Sony invented the iconic Walkman in the late 70s. Walkman became somewhat of a generic term for portable music devices (similar to Scotch Tape for clear tape) until MP3 players went mainstream this decade. Sony still uses the brand for its portable audio devices.

So is Sony looking to launch a Walkman-specific web site? Don’t hold your breath. In 2000, the company won the domain name Walkman.COM through arbitration. To date, that web site has merely displayed an “under construction” page.

Photo: Wikimedia Commons

ICANN.org redesign moves forward.

For an organization that’s at the center of the internet, ICANN’s web site is outdated and difficult to use. Over the summer it asked for feedback on the current web site and is working through the process of redesigning its web site.

An outside consultancy compiled survey results and interviewed users of the web site to put together a new web site structure. First images of what the web site might look like are promising, highlighting the most frequently sought sections of the web site.

One key finding from the research: one of the main reasons people visit ICANN.org is because they have a domain dispute.

It’s also interesting to see the top pages people visit at ICANN.org:

1. Home page
2. Accredited registrars list
3. About
4. New gTLD program
5. Whois data reminder policy (which is linked to in millions of registrar emails each year)

Below: a potential implementation of ICANN’s new web site.

More .biz domains heading to auction next week.

Following on the heals of Neustar’s successful auction of one and two character .biz domain names on Sedo, the company has inked a deal to sell a number of domains through Moniker. The domains will be auctioned at next week’s TRAFFIC conference in Brooklyn, as well as in Moniker’s extended online auction following the event.

Sedo’s auction included only one character domains, as Neustar was still seeking proposals from companies interested in developing two character domains at the time of the auction. With the RFP period closed, two character domains can now be auctioned.

Perhaps the best domain in the auction will be i.biz, but there are several location-specific domains that should attract attention:

TX.biz – Texas
KC.biz – Kansas City
OK.biz – Oklahoma
NY.biz – New York

All domains will be offered at no reserve.