The never ending stretch of confusing similarity.

National Arbitration Forum panelist Jonas Gulliksson has determined that the “Report a rip off” is confusingly similar to “Rip-Off Report”, and has ordered ReportaRipoff.net transferred to the owner of RipoffReport.com.

Now, if what the complainant in this case states is true, it’s clear that the registrant of ReportaRipoff.net crossed some bounds that were sure to land him in hot water. But I have a hard time getting past the confusing similarity of these two terms.

In explaining how these two terms are similar, Gulliksson writes:

The registered trademark of the Complainant is incorporated in its entirety in the disputed domain name. The Panel concludes that the addition or, as in this case, the omission of hyphens is irrelevant under the Policy 4(a)(i). Further, the inclusion of the letter “a” and the reverse order of the words are not sufficient to distinguish the disputed domain name from the Complainant’s trademark.

That’s a lot of exceptions, but let’s run with it, especially if Gullikson can give some good examples from previous cases. But that’s where I get confused.

His first example is Easyjet Airline Co. Ltd. v. Harding, where a panel found that easy-jet.net was confusingly similar to EASYJET. OK, so the same words in the same order with an added hyphen are confusingly similar. But what about backwards?

Example two is Classic Metal Roofs, LLC v. Interlock Indus., Ltd., which concluded that classicmetalroofing.com was confusingly similar to “Classic Metal Roofs” because changing the final term of the mark from “roofs” to “roofing” was a minor alteration.

I don’t see what the latter case has to do with the present one in which a word is added and the two key terms flipped.

I guess I don’t know where this stops. Perhaps I’ll file a UDRP against DNJournal. After all, it’s the same thing as Domain Name Wire except it abbreviates “Domain Name” and uses Journal instead of Wire, which could be considered similar.

Big geo domain is looking for a new owner.

The domain name and web site Austin.com is now officially for sale at Sedo.

I caught wind a few months ago that the site was up for sale, which didn’t surprise me much. I met with one of Austin.com’s key employees a year or two ago and left feeling that the site owners were taking it in the wrong direction. They were investing a significant amount on creating timely content rather than focusing on building out the directory and evergreen content. It was an expensive approach that didn’t drive immediate revenue.

What this means is that a new owner can possibly take the site in a new direction and get quick results. Of course, I’d suggest due diligence to figure out what sort of reputation the site has with advertisers and business partners.

I’ve lived in Austin for 15 years and would love to see the site become what it should be. If you don’t live in Austin then buying this site would make a great excuse for frequent visits to the “Best City for the Next Decade“. I also recommend making a scouting trip during SXSW in March.

Asking price: $700,000. Contact Ryan Colby at ryan.colby (at) sedo.com for details.

Familiar face joins startup domain name monetization company.

A new monetization service for owners of premium domain names has hired domain consultant and writer Frank Michlick as Chief Technology Officer, Domain Name Wire has learned.

Left of the Dot Media enables domain owners to sell subdomains (i.e. third level domain names) on their existing domains. The company is currently working on Villa.com. For example, a villa owner in Orlando could register orlando.villa.com. Left of the Dot creates a website on the subdomain and provides tools for the villa owner to change and maintain the site while the owner of Villa.com gets a cut of the revenue for each subdomain sold. Another example is Beef.com, where a rancher in Wisconsin could register wisconsin.beef.com.

The company debuted at TRAFFIC’s Test Track in Vancouver and received funding as a result.

Michlick is best known as a founder and contributing writer to Domain Name News. He also founded DomainCocoon, which provides services for domain name management, custom registrar creation, and ICANN & ccTLD accreditation consulting. Prior to that he worked at Tucows.

Left of the Dot is currently in a closed beta and is working on creating three more generic domains in the same manner as Villa.com and Beef.com. Company representatives will be at DOMAINfest in Santa Monica February 1-3.

New country means a new country code.

When Montenegro became independent from the former Yugoslavia (aka Serbia and Montenegro) it also picked up a nifty country code, ME. As the official country code in ISO 3166 Maintenance Agency’s list for the country it’s also what was delegated to the country as a country code top level domain name — .me. .Me has been marketed as a vanity top level domain name and has generated revenue for the country.

Another country to find domain name profits is the island nation of Tuvalu, which has profited from .TV (although it says it’s not getting paid enough for “selling” the domain).

With South Sudan getting closer to splitting from the northern part of the country we’re going to see a new country code added to the ISO 3166 Maintenance Agency list. That means the new country can ask IANA to delegate it as a country code top level domain name.

What will it be? Currently Sudan’s country code is SD, which will likely be held onto by the North. Will the southern part be called South Sudan? SS has a negative connotation thanks to the Nazis. So perhaps the country can get more creative.

Here are some two letter country codes that have yet to be assigned that would make nifty ccTLDs:

GO
HE
HI
ON

Domain name broker brings in big sales.

Afternic had another strong sales week.

In the top reportable sale, Mid-America Apartment Communities bought MAAC.com for a solid $63,000. The publicly traded REIT has over 45,000 apartment units. This is a nice domain upgrade for the company, which currently has its home at maac.NET.

In a very timely sale, Afternic also sold MLKonline.com for $42,500 to a non-profit.

Here are other notable reportable sales for the week:

harmonie.com $23,580
brainwater.com $18,000
quickfixes.com $13,688
thebounce.com $11,000
thebedstore.com $8,800
PavingSlabs.com $8,000
simposio.com $7,500
text2pay.com $7,500
1gb.com $7,000
lolshirts.com $6,160
BlankLabel.com $6,000
OutdoorCooling.com $5,750
loanstop.com $5,600
kabelfernsehen.com $5,500
pchc.com $5,500
sitw.com $5,400
onsitesupport.com $5,400
muslimpage.com $5,288
oceanline.com $5,188
proveyourself.com $5,000
grc.net $7,000
cart.net $5,750
webhostingtalk.co.in $4,599
2030.net $2,888
proplan.net $2,588
entertainmentcentral.net $2,500