VirtualPoint claims reverse domain name hijacking and asks for at least $100,000.
VirtualPoint, Inc., the company that runs the UDRP information site UDRPSearch.com, has filed a lawsuit after one of its own domain names was subject to a UDRP.
Florida company FastTrak, which uses the domain name FastTrak.biz, filed a UDRP against VirtualPoint’s domain name FastTrak.com.
In its dispute, FastTrak stated “the internet is our store front, and we would like to improve our online presence with the most common domain extension .COM.”
VirtualPoint’s owner David Lahoti registered the FastTrak.com domain in 2004. According to the suit (pdf), in May 2016 the Florida company inquired about buying the domain name. The next month it filed a design trademark in the U.S., which was granted in January 2017. Shortly thereafter it filed the UDRP.
The Florida company registered the domain name FastTrak.biz in 2010.
VirtualPoint is asking the court to confirm that it is not cybersquatting on the domain and asks for a reverse domain name hijacking finding and at least $100,000.
If there’s any defense for the Florida company’s actions, it’s that the Whois record has changed company names a few times since Lahoti acquired it in 2014. In its UDRP the Florida company states that VirtualPoint acquired the domain name in 2015, which is when the Whois record changed from one of Lahoti’s other company names to VirtualPoint.
Still, if the complainant was sophisticated enough to look at historical Whois records, they surely would have noticed that the city name and phone number associated with the domain hasn’t changed even when the company names have.
HG says
“the internet is our store front, and we would like to improve our online presence with the most common domain extension .COM.”
“So, we’ll just try to steal a domain which isn’t out and that we should have gotten in the first place.”
Sounds like millennials.
M. Menius says
The phrase is very common and applies to many business products and services.
From the look of their website, they may want to focus on the coming Fasttrak.sports.