Marchex Defends Domain from New Debt Reduction Company
Thursday, July 8th, 2010
Chronology of registration “fatal” to complainant’s case.
Marchex has successfully defended the domain name uFirst.com, which it acquired as part of the acquisition of Ultimate Search. The challenge was brought by a United First Financial, a company that claims it can help you “build wealth and eliminate debt simultaneously”. Some say the company is just a pyramid scheme.
Regardless of the merits of United First Financial’s business, one thing’s for clear: its UDRP case lacked any merit. Yun Ye first registered the domain name back in 2001. Marchex bought his portfolio in 2005. The complainant didn’t exist until 2007. So proving that Yun Ye or Marchex registered the domain name in bad faith would be impossible.
The three person panel wrote:
The fact that the domain name registration predates the earliest date where the Complainant might have had rights in the UFIRST mark is fatal to the complaint. Given the registration chronology, the undisputed facts foreclose the Panel’s finding bad faith registration and use under Policy 4(a)iii.
Case closed. And another win for John Berryhill.
Further Reading:
Another great job by John B.
Too bad the panel didn’t charge them with ‘reverse hijacking’.
The company uses the above challenged domain with a hyphen.
I guess the company figured it was cheaper trying to get the domain thru UDRP than buying it.
I figure they lost $ 5K on this challenge.
I wonder why they didn’t go after UnitedFinancial ,com ??
It is a ppc page with a link directly to the complainant. That would have been easier low hanging fruit.