Even if you’re a company fan, resist the urge to use a trademark in your domain name.

The GM Volt electric car is getting quite a bit of buzz lately, including this article in the New York Times. The article links to GM-Volt.com, which it notes is unaffiliated with GM.

Compete.com shows that GM-Volt.com gets about 75,000 visits a month, which is nothing to sneeze at. It probably brings in a bit of revenue for the site owner, too, which is why I would never recommend starting a site that uses a brand name like this. GM can quite possibly get the domain name, either through a cheap and fast UDRP or through a lawsuit.

But wait — isn’t this site good for building GM’s brand? Perhaps, but it’s littered with ads for GM’s competitors. Right now I see ads for Ford and Lexus. Even a disclaimer message saying the site isn’t affiliated with General Motors Company is turned into a contextual ad for Ford:

Some companies have made a business out of similar car enthusiast sites, including publicly traded Internet Brands. But even they acknowledge there’s some risk in what they do.

My advice: go ahead and create a fan site. But don’t include trademarks in your domain name.

Have you submitted comments about inter-registrar transfers?

Earlier this month I made a call-to-action on an important comment period at ICANN. At issue is the “Inter-Registrar Transfer Policy Part B Initial Report”. Part of the report suggests a mechanism by which victims of domain thefts can regain control of their domains. But important safeguards must be in place to not disrupt the domain name aftermarket.

Here are the comments I submitted to ICANN. You should submit your comments, too. The deadline is August 10.

Begin comments:

Running Domain Name Wire, I’m often made aware of domain name thefts. Many victims reach out to me in an effort to publicize their case and (hopefully) get the word out before a stolen domain name is resold. I have also nearly been a victim myself, having almost purchased a stolen domain name before getting suspicious and doing more research on the ownership history.

But it occurs to me, as I consider this initial report, that I have no idea how many domain names are actually stolen on a monthly basis. Furthermore, I have no idea how many of those are never returned. From my conversations with various industry companies, this number seems to be very small.

Before embarking on an effort to change the system, I think it would be wise to scope out the size of the problem. Large registrars should be asked to voluntarily disclose the number of domain names stolen in a typical month, and how many aren’t recovered after 30 days. For some reason a handful of registrars seem unwilling to provide this data, but many more will. In an effort to anonymize the data, it could be provided to a secure third party that aggregates it and reports it as a single number.

If, after collecting this data, it is determined to be a large enough problem, please consider the following with regards to ETRP and the inter-registrar transfer policy:

1. Any changes should carefully consider effects on the secondary market for domain names. Every day, hundreds (thousands?) of domain names are sold in the secondary market. Not only do “evil domainers” use this market, but Fortune 500 companies depend on the secondary market as well.

2. It seems that a common hijacking approach is to gain control of the victim’s email address and/or registrar account. Security efforts should be aimed at this problem, and not extended to become overly broad. For example, if someone changes the mailing address of their domain’s administrative contact, should the domain be unnecessarily locked down? I don’t think so. Unless a registrar provides *specific data* showing this is a sign of hijacking, it shouldn’t be considered, and registrars should be specifically forbidden from placing a transfer lock on a domain in this circumstance.

3. One pattern I’ve noticed in thefts is that domains are transferred from one respected domain name registrar to another respected registrar, and then quickly transferred to a questionable registrar. Consider limiting the number of registrar transfers within a specific time period.

4. 6 months is way too long to allow someone to initiate a theft claim. At most it should be 30 days. If the domain is important enough, it will be discovered within hours or days.

5. The new registrant of the domain must be given sufficient time to respond to an ETRP.

BME.com case ruling could affect domain owners.

A United States District Court ruling in a case between Gregory Ricks and BMEZine over the domain name BME.com has some interesting implications for domain name owners. (For background on the case, see Ricks Files Lawsuit to Retain Control of BME.com)

Without getting into all the details of what was argued, here are some of the court’s decisions (large pdf) worth noting:

1. The court held that a re-registration of a domain name is a “registration” for the purposes of the Anti-Cybersquatting Protection Act. In other words, if you registered a domain in 2000 and “re-registered” it (i.e. renewed) in 2004, both dates are relevant. A domain could be registered in good faith, but renewed in bad faith.

The Act provides no exception for re-registrations by the same owner. Any registration thus may bring the registrant within the statute’s purview. Congressional intent would be undermined by Ricks’ proposed interpretation. If a domain name was registered in good faith originally, but thereafter re-registered in bad faith, the cybersquatter would escape liability, a result not supportable by the statutory scheme.

2. The court re-iterates that a domain name privacy service can be held liable for cybersquatting. As I’ve noted before, providing a whois privacy service isn’t free.

3. The court said that to successfully argue reverse domain name hijacking, you must show that your use of the domain name was not unlawful under ACPA — not the Lanham Act in general.

4. The court found that you are at least partially responsible for the content of your parked domain names since you can have some control over it.

Note that this is a court ruling under U.S. laws and does not make any interpretations of UDRP.

Company will help me protect my trademark by listing it on its low traffic web site for $1,117.00.

One of the more frustrating and misleading domain name shenanigans is the fake renewal notice. This notice, often sent via postal mail and disguised as an invoice, gets unsuspecting businesses to pay to renew their domain name. At the same time, they are unknowingly consenting to transferring their domain to a new registrar.

It’s bad. It’s misleading. It’s wrong.

But check out this doozie I just got in the mail from a company called Medianetcom. Their invoice-looking solicitation (pdf) asks me to list my registered trademark on its web site for only $1,117.00 for three years. What a steal!

Medianetcom has a few disclaimers on the “order form”, noting in small print that it’s not a legal requirement nor a mandatory service. But it also warns you that “Protecting a trademark from confusingly similar names in the responsibility of the owner and not of the US Patent and Trademark Office. Save your registered trademark in the media:net:com Trademark Internet Service and enjoy worldwide the recognition of your trademark.”

So listing my trademark on web site with little traffic for $1,117.00 will help protect my mark beyond a listing in the official USPTO web site?

Nope.

Of course, I’m sure a number of companies just process the order form as an invoice and send along the money.

Still no general consensus on registry-registrar separation for new TLDs.

With names such as RACK+, “Free Trade”, and CAM3, you can be excused for confusing proposals for registry-registrar separation on new TLDs with exotic subprime mortgage bonds or off-balance sheet Enron subsidiaries.

But these are names of three of the six proposals for integrating the traditionally separate roles of registrars (e.g. Go Daddy, eNom) and registries (e.g. VeriSign, Neustar) that are put forth in the GNSO’s Vertical Integration Working Group Initial Report.

Why so many? There’s a lot of disagreement between the parties. I’ve opined before that registries have more to lose than registrars by vertical integration:

Say grocery stores were forbidden from selling their own store brand products. Then rules are changed to permit it. At the same time, big food brands are allowed to open grocery stores for the first time. The incumbent grocery stores would immediately gain power as they control existing shelf space and customer relationships. The brands could build their own stores, but it will take a couple years.

So it comes as little surprise that registry Afilias is in the middle of some of the proposals. The current rule in the draft applicant guidebook would rule out Afilias for new TLDs because it is owned by a number of registrars. Afilias is wants to increase registrar ownership limitations from 2% to 15%, which would permit Afilias to act as a registry for new TLDs.

On the other hand you have registrars such as eNom that want to also introduce their own TLDs. Heavyweight Go Daddy has been somewhat mum on its position, and I haven’t seen any suggestion from the company that it wants to create its own TLDs.

Right now the only proposal on the books in which more working group members are in favor of it (or willing to “live with it”) than are opposed is called JN2. Under JN2, there are restrictions on vertical integration that are relaxed after 18 months.

It looks like the ultimate decision will be up to ICANN’s board, which many think will make a final call on vertical integration during a board retreat in September. Regardless of what it decides, some people will be happy and others will be upset. The initial report notes:

“Despite many hours of face-­to-­face meetings, telephone conference calls, and over 3,000 emails generated in a five month period, no consensus has been reached on a proposed model on vertical integration and cross‐ownership.”

Given the money at stake, it’s no surprise that a consensus wasn’t reach.

A comment period is open through August 12.