10 names in domains that got lots of search action this year.

It’s that time of year when you start seeing “top 10 of the year” lists, so let’s get things started.

This list is the top 10 people associated with the domain name industry (not necessarily domain investors) in terms of the number of searches driving visitors to Domain Name Wire so far in 2010. Each person’s name sent at least 100 visitors to DNW.

1. John Berryhill – I think many of the searchers represent complainants in UDRPs. When they receive the response from Mr. Berryhill they yell “who the hell is this guy?!”

2. Roy Messer – The man. The legend.

3. Mike Mann – Made quite a splash this year with Sex.com.

4. Tessa Holcomb – Umm, seriously folks. There are no pictures of Tessa on this site. Or maybe Tessa needs to stop googling herself.

5. Hal Bailey – The Google Keymaster.

6. Stewart Resmer – The guy who sued SnapNames over losing $20. Left quite a few comments on this site over the year.

7. Kevin Ham – The man who (still) owns the internet.

8. Andrew Allemann – Seriously? My name is on just about every article and I’m only #8?

9. Francois Carrillo – I guess I need to start publishing a French version of Domain Name Wire.

10. Nelson Brady – Add in the keyword “halvarez” and he jumps up the list a bit.

Big registrars pushing .co as next best thing to .com.

Last month Go Daddy created quite a buzz by briefly changed its default domain name search parameter to .co.

Although Go Daddy and its competitors continue to offer .com first, two large retail domain registrars are making a significant push to get customers to register .co.

Both Network Solutions and Register.com are promoting .com as a second choice to .co, with Network Solutions even promoting .co above other domain extensions you’ve selected.

Here’s a screenshot from Network Solutions. I searched for xyzdomain and selected the default .com and .net TLDs. .Com is unavailable, but Network Solutions slots (and auto selects) .co along with .net, even placing it ahead of the available .net.

If the .com is available, Network Solutions still slots .co as number two but doesn’t auto select it.

At Register.com .co is called out as an alternative whenever your .com isn’t available. The site pitches the domain as an alternative to .com, saying .co is short for “company”. Alternative TLDs are far down the page:

Company files claim for domain name registered 12 years before it started using the “trademark”.

Here’s another case of a domain name owner having to respond to an egregious UDRP complaint.

Paper Denim & Cloth, LLC filed a complaint against VertMarkets, Inc. to get the generic domain name Resin.com. The complainant admitted that it just started using the mark “Resin” in 2010 and that VertMarkets registered the domain all the way back in 1998, but still filed the case.

So the case is already dead, but it gets better. VertMarkets is in the B2B market and registered a bunch of domain names back in the days related to various industries. It even registered the domains with CSC Corporate Domains, a brand protection registrar. But Paper Denim & Cloth, LLC, represented by Gary H. Fechter of McCarter & English, LLP, made a quite incredible argument:

An industry has developed in which companies, such as the Respondent’s, use domain names not as a basis for producing and selling goods but, instead, primarily for obtaining fees. For these companies, an offer to buy the domain name is a bargaining tool to charge exorbitant fees to companies that seek to buy the domain name. If the offer to buy is not to the company’s likeness, the company denies it, and sits on the domain name until a more lucrative offer comes along. Respondent is one such company. Respondent is not using the domain name and has no plans to use it. Respondent is waiting for the right number to come along, but as he waits, the Complainant, a bona fide owner and user of the RESIN trademark, cannot use his RESIN trademark as a domain name.

Wow.

VertMarkets won, but this is another example of egregious abuse of UDRP. The respondent didn’t ask for a finding of reverse domain name hijacking, but the panel should have considered it anyway.

3DCafe, Inc. found guilty of reverse domain name hijacking.

A three person National Arbitration Forum panel has called out 3DCafe, Inc. for attempted reverse domain name hijacking in a case over 3DCafe.com.

The complainant argued that it had rights from its “predecessor in interest” for the term 3DCafe dating back to 1991. But the domain name owner, with the help of attorney Ari Goldberger, poked holes in the complainant’s arguments.

The panel determined that 3DCafe, Inc. and its lawyer Danielle I. Mattessich of Merchant & Gould had provided scant evidence of any sort of common law rights to the mark when the domain name was registered. While not invoking the doctrine of laches, the panel also cited New York Times Co. v. Name Administration Inc. and the significant delay between when the domain was registered and when the case was filed.

In finding reverse domain name hijacking, the panel wrote:

In the present circumstances, the lack of a trademark, the delay by the Complainant and the fact that the Complainant itself showed no evidence of any right to any common law rights to a mark, all combine to infer that the Complainant acted in bad faith. The Panel therefore makes a finding of reverse domain name hijacking.

UDRP panelist uses some common sense.

UDRP complainants frequently point to the content of registrar holding pages as evidence that a domain name registrant registered the domain name in bad faith. It’s a convenient argument that takes advantage of most panelists’ misunderstanding of parked domain names vs. holding pages.

Consider a recent case where Fireman’s Fund Insurance Company argued that the registrant of FiremansFundBlog.com registered the domain name in bad faith because the domain was parked with competitive ads.

Indeed, the parked page does show lots of competitors:

But there’s a distinction between this page, which was placed at the domain name by Go Daddy and not the registrant, and a parked page set up by the registrant. Most panelists overlook this, but not Paul M. DeCicco.

In his decision finding in favor of the respondent, DeCicco notes:

The at-issue domain name’s registrar’s business practice is to set all new domain name registration records to initially resolve to a registrar (Go-Daddy) controlled holding page featuring advertising related to the domain name. The record remains this way until the registrant redirects the domain name’s DNS record elsewhere. The existence and content of such holding pages is thus not the result of the domain name registrant’s intent…It is thus Go-Daddy not the Respondent that receives any benefit from the complained of holding page.

(I should point out that most of the time when a registrar landing page is at issue in a UDRP, the registrant is not a cybersquatter. A true cybersquatter would have parked the domain name somewhere else to earn money.)

DeCicco points out that many other panels have found otherwise, but makes a great argument as to why the registrar parking page should not be used against the domain name owner:

The results of a UDRP proceeding should not hang on happenstance. Decisions should not vary simply because a particular registrar links new registrations to a holding page that happens to contain links that might offend Complainant, while another registrar puts up only a benign ‘under construction’ notice as a holding page or fails to resolve the domain name at all until the registrant specifies how so.

Amen, Mr. DeCicco.