University loses claim for domain name registered five years prior to its existence.
Bridgepoint Education’s Ashford University has lost a UDRP case for the domain name Ashford.net because it doesn’t understand how dates work.
Bridgepoint bought Franciscan University of the Prairies in 2005 and renamed it Ashford University. It also got the corresponding Ashford.edu.
In this UDRP case the University went after the owner of Ashford.net, but the domain name was registered all the way back in 2000. Yes, the domain name does have pay-per-click ads for education and financial aid. But it’s impossible that the domain name was registered in bad faith five years before Ashford came into existence. That does not compute.
Perhaps Bridgepoint’s lawyers need to take some math classes at Ashford.
SL says
Off topic but interesting…
If anyone is curious about how these “colleges” work, PBS/Frontline did a great expose a while back (Ashford is included). Here are the links:
Video:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/collegeinc/
Transcript:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/collegeinc/etc/script.html
Barry Lebovitz says
UDRP is still a dice game, and I’m glad they got this decision right. But it doesn’t matter.
I feel so cheated already, because I have lost and won UDRP. I feel that the entire process shouldn’t even exist anymore. They should have said to all TM owners they have 5 years to claim their marks.
In stead they are going to milk it for the entire lifespan of domains. And that is why we will never be able to rest assured our assets are protected. Because this “organization” can lock up your domains at any moment without anything but a CLAIM.
So bullocks to all of it…
guy says
disgraceful
ashford is a geo location, most notably in the UK
people should do a bit of adigging, find the individuals responsible in the university for bringing this spurious claim, and wasting government money no doubt, and name and shame the firm of corrupt lawyers who have basically just stolen money from an educational facility for this sham of a claim
Russ says
They’ve been on the hunt for “everything ashford”
Check the whois history on the .org
The key is getting them to go from talking arbitration to talking money.
steve says
This college is full of bs.
They should have to pay the other party $5,000 for being stupid.
Einstein says
Actually they are very good at math. Risk losing $5k and have a very good chance of taking a domain name. How many UDRP-s have come down differently (used in bad faith) and people lost their names. That ‘and’ looks like it’s to be interpreted as they want.
Andrew Allemann says
@ Einstein – I’ll buy that argument. But it doesn’t appear that the lawyers knew that line of reasoning heading in based on the panelist’s write-up.
Citizen says
Take a look at their growth since they were bought out. Remind me again why they need to go back to math class. Oh, thats right, because youre ignorance said so. Good Hustle.
Andrew Allemann says
@ Citizen – we have a strict policy on Domain Name Wire against Astroturfing. I’ll let your comment stay, but you should identify that you work for Bridgepoint when making a comment.
Einstein says
“Take a look at their growth since they were bought out. Remind me again why they need to go back to math class. Oh, thats right, because youre ignorance said so. Good Hustle.”
How about an ethics class Mr ‘Diploma Mill’ employee http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/collegeinc/etc/script.html
John Berryhill says
“Take a look at their growth since they were bought out.”
Yes, of course, the measure of any quality educational institution is its revenue.
I’ll bet the diploma generator for Pinot Grigio University gets a lot of traffic too!
http://www.boxfreeconcepts.com/magicmill/index.html
Dave Zan says
@Citizen
Owned?