The 10th most viewed article on Domain Name Wire this year was…
This is the first of 10 posts on Domain Name Wire that will reflect on the top stories on Domain Name Wire during 2016. This is based purely on the total number of views, and you’ll see that this can return some funny results based on which articles get picked up by other news sources or go viral.
Let’s kick this off with the 10th most viewed article on DNW this year…
We’ve seen lots of dirty tactics undertaken by UDRP filers, and #10 on the list for 2016 is just one example.
#10 I’ll pay $500k for your domain name. Psych! Here’s a UDRP.
A French company that sells social media followers using the domain name BuyFollowers.fr filed a UDRP against BuyFollowers.com. In the complaint, the company said that the domain name owner was willing to sell the domain to it for $500,000.
What it didn’t tell the panel was that the complainant told the respondent it would buy the domain name for $500,000. The respondent wasn’t an idiot; he accepted the offer. Then the complainant filed a UDRP using this as “evidence”.
A very common and unethical tactic undertaken by some companies is to negotiate to buy a domain name and subsequently use the negotiation to prove the domain owner wanted to sell the domain. Often, the complainant will pretend like the domain owner initiated the discussion, and not the other way around.
David Michaels says
Under the UDRP rules, a Complainant has a duty to certify that the information contained in its UDRP Complaint and in its responses to procedural orders are, to the best of their knowledge, complete and accurate. False, incomplete or inaccurate statements should give rise to bad faith and RDNH claims in US courts and will hopefully be the basis for punitive damage awards.
In this case, the damages should be what was offered: $500K. And the punitive damages award should be at least $1.5M (3x the losses). I am looking for litigation support to get punitive damages in my ACPA claim regarding the WIPO decision in my sesamesnaps.com domain names.
John Berryhill says
I had one case in which there was an email accidentally included among the complainant’s exhibits where the attorney was instructing the complainant to try to solicit a sale offer for use as evidence in a UDRP proceeding, with the expectation the domain registrant would “probably default.”
Logan says
You forgot to dig a little deeper to see that BuyFollowers.fr ended up acquiring the BuyFollowers.com domain name, some way, some how. Would be good to contact the seller to see what happened and what price he got for it.