Man gives controversial domain name to Beck after proving a point.

Isaac Eiland-Hall just won a highly publicized case against Glenn Beck over the domain name glennbeckrapedandmurderedayounggirlin1990.com. As soon as he won, he did something surprising: he offered the domain name to Beck for free.

In a letter (pdf) to Beck, Eiland-Hall explained that he has met his objectives with the domain name and web site, and points out to Beck that bringing the case made things worse for Beck.

It bears observing that by bringing the WIPO complaint, you took what was merely one small critique meme, in a sea of internet memes, and turned it into a super-meme. Then, in pressing forward (by not withdrawing the complaint and instead filing additional briefs), you turned the super-meme into an object lesson in First Amendment principles.”

In explaining his reason for voluntarily handing over the domain, Eiland-Hall wrote:

“…I want to demonstrate to you that I had my lawyer fight this battle only to help preserve the First Amendment. Now that it is safe, at least from you (for the time being), I have no more use for the actual scrap of digital real estate you sought…

Letter insinuates that CADNA does not take a balanced approach to intellectual property rights.

The ICANN IP Constituency is distancing itself from the Coalition Against Domain Name Abuse (CADNA).

In a letter to ICANN CEO Rod Beckstrom, J. Scott Evans, President of the Intellectual Property Constituency, referred to a recent discussion in which CADNA was referred to as being a member of the constituency.

During our presentation, Mike Silba made a reference to the recent Congressional hearings held on new gTLDs. Specifically, Mike stated that “one of your members” had instigated these hearings and was the only party to file negative comments on the Affirmation of Commitments that ICANN recently signed with the U.S. Department of Commerce. Later that same day, Nick Wood, a representative of IPC member Marques, quered Mike about his comment. Mike explained that he was referring to the Coalition Against Domain Name Abuse (CADNA) in his comments during the IPC meeting.

I want to clarifiy for the record that CADNA is not now nor has it ever been a member of the IPC. Additionally, I want you and the rest of the Board to know that Yahoo! resigned from CADNA in January 2008, shortly after I joined the company. The IPC has historically worked very hard to present a balanced view of IP protection in the DNS and, for this reason, I felt compelled to correct the public record and to ensure that the other Board members present at the meeting receive this information.

Note the explanation for how the IP constituency is different from CADNA: it tries to take a balanced approach. Apparently CADNA does not.

Glenn Beck loses challenge to parody web site.

Conservative TV personality Glenn Beck has lost his dispute over the domain name glennbeckrapedandmurderedayounggirlin1990.com. (See Domain Owner Respond to Glenn Beck.)

In order to win the domain name, Beck had to prove three things to an arbitrator:

1. The domain name was confusingly similar to Beck’s mark, i.e. Glenn Beck

2. The domain’s registrant did not have rights or legitimate interests in the domain name

3. The domain was registered and used in bad faith

The arbitrator for the case, Frederick M. Abbott, decided that the domain name was confusingly similar to the Glenn Beck mark, although he explained in detail how some panelists may think otherwise. But it didn’t ultimately matter, as Abbott found that the registrant did have legitimate interests in the domain:

Respondent appears to the Panel to be engaged in a parody of the style or methodology that Respondent appears genuinely to believe is employed by Complainant in the provision of political commentary, and for that reason Respondent can be said to be making a political statement. This constitutes a legitimate non-commercial use of Complainant’s mark under the Policy.

Because the second element of the UDRP wasn’t met, Abbott decided to not issue a ruling on the third element. But he also noted that it is unlikely the complainant would have prevailed on the issue of registration in bad faith anyway.

Abbott noted that whether or not the web site is defamatory could be an issue for the courts.

Review Abbott’s decision here (pdf).

Court dismisses case with prejudice over jurisdiction.

Go Daddy Group has scored a legal victory involving jurisdiction, which should be a sigh of relief for other domain name registrars, parking companies, and even the internet industry as a whole.

uBid sued Go Daddy for allegedly including domain names that included uBid’s trademarks in both parked domains and for sale in Go Daddy domain auctions.

The court didn’t rule on the validity of uBid’s claims, but instead on jurisdiction. uBid had sued Go Daddy in Illionois, even though Go Daddy doesn’t have a physical presence there. According to a summary prepared by Go Daddy’s outside counsel at Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati:

Ultimately, the court held that Go Daddy is not subject to personal jurisdiction in the state of Illinois. The court agreed with the firm’s argument that in order to exercise general jurisdiction over an Internet company that offers services to anyone in the world, the company must either have a physical presence in the state or have targeted its advertising and solicitation efforts specifically at residents of the state. The court also adopted the firm’s argument that the widely used “Zippo test” for determining whether jurisdiction exists over Internet companies does not apply to the issue of general jurisdiction. Lastly, the court agreed with the firm’s position that Illinois residents’ unilateral activity in purchasing Go Daddy’s services did not satisfy the requirements for specific jurisdiction.

A number of companies have tried to claim jurisdiction on internet companies on many wild claims, such as because their web site is accessible in the state. Even a governor has made that claim.

Atlanta.com included in UDRP by accident.

My heart skipped a beat today when I saw that Atlanta.com had been served with a domain arbitration notice. But then I quickly figured out that this is some sort of clerical error.

Automobile Atlanta, Inc. filed a case with National Arbitration Forum for six domains including automobileatlanta.com, autoatlanta.net, automobileatlanta.net, dr914.com, and lifeinhighgear.com. Oh yeah, and a minor domain name called Atlanta.com was included in the complaint listed on National Arbitration Forum’s web site.

But the other five domains are owned by a different party than Atlanta.com, which is owned by geo-magnate Skip Hoagland. When I did a little searching I found that this case is a refile of a previous case decided back in January. The one difference in domains this time around is that, instead of AutoAtlanta.com in the first case, this case includes just Atlanta.com. Either the complainant or National Arbitration Forum left off “auto” before the domain. Woops.

I assume that’s easy to fix, since technically an individual case can’t go forward against two different domain owners. But I’m sure it’s causing a headache for Hoagland to get the error fixed.