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Dialoga Servicios Interactivos, S.A. tries reverse domain name hijacking

by — Policy & Law 2 Comments

Company mistakenly included internal communications about bad faith in its submission.

Reverse domain name hijacking graphic

Dialoga Servicios Interactivos, S.A. of Spain has been found to have engaged in reverse domain name hijacking over the domain name Dialoga.com.

The company filed a UDRP against the domain name in 2017 and lost. That domain registrant let the domain expire and a domain investor bought it. Dialoga tried to buy the domain from the domain investor and ultimately filed another UDRP.

Two things were problematic for the Complainant. First, dialoga is a dictionary word in at least three major languages.

Second, the Complainant appears to have accidentally included internal communications about its intent in inquiring about buying the domain name. The communications suggest that it had an ulterior motive in its purchase inquiry:

In an internal communication in Spanish whose contents appear to have been inadvertently reproduced by the Complainant in the evidence submitted with the Complaint, and which has been translated by the Respondent, the Complainant proposes to call the Respondent and indicate that it is only interested in a purchase of the disputed domain name and would offer EUR 1,500. The Complainant notes that “the idea is to get them to imply that they will then do something else with it… something we can hold on to in order to prove bad faith on his part…”

Whoops.

LetsLaw represented the Complainant. Muscovitch Law P.C. represented the Respondent.

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How to turn your Gmail address into more addresses (and why)

by — Services 12 Comments

If you have a Gmail account you really have unlimited email addresses.

If you use Gmail, did you know that you actually have unlimited email addresses you can use? The secret is the + symbol.

Let’s say your email address is me@gmail.com. By adding a plus symbol after ‘me’ you can create unlimited variations of your email address and all will be delivered to your inbox. For example:

me+1@gmail.com
me+bank@gmail.com
me+whois@gmail.com

These will all be delivered to the me@gmail.com account.

Here are reasons you might want to use email variations using the plus symbol.

1. Filter your Gmail.

Get a lot of newsletters? Want to send certain emails directly to the archive? Use unique email addresses in combination with filters to sort your email.

2. Track Whois harvesting.

Use your Gmail account +whois for your Whois records to see who is contacting you by harvesting the Whois database.

3. See who is selling your address.

Use a unique email address for each account/login you create online to see if the business is selling your email address.

4. Reduce phishing attempts.

Use a unique identifier for each account you create to make sure you aren’t getting phished. For example, your bank email could be me+wellsfargo@gmail.com. If you get a message from Wells Fargo that uses just me@gmail.com instead of me+wellsfargo@gmail.com, then someone has harvested your email address and might be trying to trick you.

5. Reduce the chances of hacks impacting your accounts.

When hackers steal credentials from a service they then sell this information to people who run scripts to use the username/email and password combos to break into more accounts at other providers. If you use a unique email address for each service then they will be less likely to get into your other accounts.

The only problem I’ve run into using + symbols is that some web forms won’t accept the symbol and won’t accept it as a valid email address.

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Wow, this WIPO panelist should have considered RDNH

by — Policy & Law 7 Comments

This sure seems like an abuse of policy to me.

I just read the decision in a UDRP for SecretLab.com and TheSecretLab.com and I’m flumoxed as to why WIPO panelist Clive L. Elliott didn’t consider reverse domain name hijacking. The Respondent might not have asked for it, but Elliott still should have considered it.

1. The Respondent registered the domain names some 16 years before the Complainant existed.

2. The Complainant offered $20,000 for the domains before filing the UDRP.

3. According to the respondent, “Complainant contacted Respondent after the commencement of this proceeding and indicated that the proceeding was instituted to help Complainant gain leverage in its efforts to buy the Domain Names.”

That’s an abuse of policy if I’ve ever seen one. I mean, check out this part of the Complainant’s argument:

Complainant considers Respondent has registered and is continuing to hold and use the Domain Names in bad faith, having not used the Domain Names for over 20 years, and with the specific intent to take advantage of inadvertent mistakes by the Internet.

Complainant goes on to assert that there is no evidence that the Domain Names have been used in connection with a bona fide offering of goods or services, and nor is Respondent making a legitimate noncommercial nor fair use of the Domain Names.

Complainant submits that this disrupts Complainant’s business and frustrates Complainant’s customers, or potential customers, who, not realising their mistake, are apt to blame Complainant for not having the web presence they expected when they reach the landing page.

This is a classic case of a company wanting to get domain names that were registered before it existed. It tried to buy them but got frustrated and filed a UDRP.

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Tucows sold $3.2 million of domains to GoDaddy (and more from earnings call)

by — Domain Registrars 2 Comments

Tucows reveals portfolio sale price and data center plans.

Tucows logoDomain name, mobile and internet services company Tucows (NASDAQ: TCX) released earnings for Q4 and full-year 2018 yesterday.

In its pre-recorded commentary about the earnings, the company disclosed that it generated about $3.2 million from a bulk sale of domains from its portfolio in Q4. Elliot Silver reported on this transaction with GoDaddy in December. The two companies completed a similar transaction in Q4 2017 but for only $2 million. The 2017 transaction was for approximately 10% of Tucows’ domain portfolio excluding surname domain names.

It will be interesting to see if Tucows does another Q4 transaction this year.

Tucows CEO Elliot Noss made a couple of other interesting comments during the call.

First, the company bought land in Centennial, Colorado to build a data center.

Second, Noss said he’s more concerned about a recession in 2019 than in over a decade. He made the comment in relation to how the company handles share buybacks:

Today, we again announced an open market buyback program that will commence immediately. The program will allow us to repurchase up to $40 million worth of our shares over the course of the next 12 months. This year, more than any year since 2007, I find myself concerned about a possible recession. That potential will inform our thinking in terms of the program.

The earnings release is here.

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A baker’s dozen end user domain name sales

by — Domain Sales 0 Comments

A healthcare investment company, a Swedish auto parts manufacturer and a seller of “flight cases” bought domain names.

graphic of briefcase full of money related to end user domain name sales

This week we have a baker’s dozen end user sales that transacted on the Sedo marketplace and Sedo MLS, including a good list of country code domains (and even a new TLD).

You can view previous lists like this here.

WealthCare.com $30,000 – Alegeus.com, headquartered in Boston, offers a health admin system called WealthCare.

Functionally.com €7,000 – Functionally is a platform for CEOs to keep tabs on their business and for teams to work together.

D1K.de €6,499 – Forwards to Dchdecker1kauf.de which is a roofing materials supplier in Germany. Its new domain is much stronger and more concise.

Forward.eu €5,500 – Among the top sales in the ccTLD category & SedoMLS sales, this domain was purchased by a Belgium company formerly known as Planet of Commerce. It helps customers with the Salesforce Customer Success Platform.

Rex.one $5,000 – Engineering firms Innovative Engineering Group and Ntrive merged to for REX and chose this new TLD.

UnicornWealth.com $3,995 – A financial and wealth tips forum.

B-Ring.com $3,800 – B-Ring, a Swedish producer of automobile spare parts, uses the B-Ring.eu domain name. The .com now forwards to the .eu.

RollingBones.com €3,000 – Rolling Bones Outfitters, which uses RollingBonesOutfitters.com for its hunting expedition travel site.

FlightCase.eu €2,999- Forwards to ProCase.de, a B2B online store that sells flight cases. Flight cases are like super-duper luggage for transporting delicate equipment.

AccessHealth.net $2,788 – Rural Health Care, Inc., an advocate for health care providers in rural areas.

Sybel.com $2,500 – Forwards to Sybel.co, a French multi-genre audio series platform.

Apart-Audio.de €2,499- This currently forwards to a page describing this Belgian brand of loudspeakers and electrical appliances for the audio installation market.

Samyang.de €2,000 – Forwards to Foto-Walser.de, a German brand of photography equipment.

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