Judge sides with Verizon, settlement in doubt.
A federal district judge has dealt a blow to Above.com in a lawsuit brought against it by Verizon.
Chief United States District Judge Audrey Collins has denied Above.com’s motion to dismiss charges of contributory cybersquatting.
Above.com and the other defendants have accepted responsibility for registering and monetizing typos of Verizon’s brand names, but argued they shouldn’t be responsible for domain names owned by clients of Above.com who use its privacy services and monetization program.
The judge said that Above.com could be liable for actions of its customers if it should have been aware of their activities. Verizon argued that the company was aware of customer use of its services for cybersquatting based on receiving over 100 UDRP notices (pdf).
At one point it looked like the parties were close to settling, but it appears the fight over Above.com’s responsibility for customer domains remains and issue. The case will move forward.
George Kirikos says
It’ll be interesting if registry operators are targeted using the same legal principles.
Chip Meade says
This is a very slippery slope that ALL registrars AND registies pay attention to. Could make registration of names a much bigger hassle. Since when has notice of legal proceeding been an indicator of anything? Verizon has quite a few in it’s closet so it may come back to bite them.
Hal Meyer says
Who us? Lil ol’ us? We’re not doing anything wrong. What stack of hundreds of UDRPs? What guy? The guy behind the curtain with that huge stack of hundred dollar bills and the bulging suitcases full of cash? Oh, just ignore him. He is on the night crew, he does our maintenance. He has no connection whatsoever to all those people who park their domains with us. We have no idea what those people are doing. There is no connection.
120 Volt Single Speed Jigsaw says
Great News !!! It’s about time !
There are too many shady operators in this biz and if they would be removed, or forced to clean themselves up, the whole industry’s image would improve drastically.
Also, those with us with pure play generics would see our payouts rise dramatically, I suspect.
I can’t stand Above.com and how slimy they have always come across as. This is good news for the industry if they get slapped for this.
Clean yourselves up, Above.com, we will all be better off in the long run !!!
John McCormac says
As George said above, it will be interesting. It is really going to alter the face of PPC if it can be used to go after some of the other operators. Some will not survive.
Could this go nuclear and have lawyers for potential cybersquatting victims focusing their attention on the ICANN accreditation of registrars? Admittedly that is very much a worst case scenario.
John Berryhill says
This is a denial of a motion to dismiss, so some of the excitement is premature.
Andrew Allemann says
@ John Berryhill –
Many of us domainers are premature excitementers.
JNet says
@120 Volt Single Speed Jigsaw
It is certainly a bummer that Trellian/Above is in this unpleasant pickle with big V and their vintage bare knuckles tactics, including serving the court summons & complaint at DomainFest in Santa Monica in January….
….But where the heck are you coming from with the overtly nasty & overly negative portrayal of the Above.com folks ???
… I have gone to many domain conferences & shows over the years and the Trellian/Above folks have had exhibits at most.. and have always come accross as polite, professional and non-controversial… I’m pretty sure that many in the domain space would agree.
What is your real motive and “ax to grind” here ?
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Furthermore it would be good to zoom in moreso on the counter arguments and standpoints of the defendants here.
Don’t criticize the cuisine before it is served !