Oversee.net and related companies dropped from Transamerica lawsuit.
Transamerica has dismissed Moniker, Oversee.net, Domain Systems, and Moniker Privacy Services LLC from its lawsuit over alleged trademark infringement. The parties filed a Joint Stipulation for Dismissal with prejudice on December 28, 2009. Moniker also withdrew its request for sanctions under Rule 11.
This is a big win for domain name registrars. Since the beginning, Moniker claimed it was merely a registrar and was protected under the Anti-Cybersquatting Protection Act from its customers’ actions.
But Transamerica’s lawsuit continues against a number of domain registrants who used Moniker as their registrar. Tracking down these other defendants may prove difficult, as it’s unclear how many provided accurate information in whois.
Of eleven summons with results reported back to the court, only four defendants have been successfully served: SwallowLane Holdings Ltd, VirtualSky, Ron Oron, and Domain Park Ltd. SwallowLane was served in person, and the others via email. Efforts to contact seven of the defendants via email failed: Omgi Media, Net 41 Media, Jayme Young, Jan Stroh, H.W. Barnes, G.H. Wagenaars, and Domain Ventures.
Dave Zan says
Took ’em a long while (and money) to finally figure that out. Sheesh.
John Nagle says
Actually, privacy services can be held liable for cybersquatting. While registrars have a safe harbor, privacy services do not. See SolidHost vs. NameCheap: “”NameCheap is, by virtue of the anonymity service it provides, the registrant of a domain name that allegedly infringes SolidHost’s trademark.” The registrar safe harbor, according to the court in SolidHost, doesn’t apply when the registrar is also acting as a proxy owner.
Legally, the proxy service is the owner of the domain. The nominal owner is just renting it from them. This can backfire on either party.
This means that whenever you need to sue a “private domain”, you start by suing the privacy service. Maybe they can pass off liability to the nominal owner, and maybe they can’t. A proxy service which can’t locate their proxy customer to pass the buck is in real trouble.