Google files arbitration for Youtube.net.
Google (GOOG) and its YouTube division have filed for arbitration under UDRP to get control of the YouTube.net domain name.
YouTube.net’s whois record currently shows an owner in China, and the domain appears to have bounced around between a couple different owners over the past year. When this happens, and especially when the whois information may be bogus, trademark owners have few options to get control other than through UDRP.
YouTube.com was registered in February 2005. (Was it really that recent?). YouTube.net was registered in August of that same year.
Why is Google going after this domain now? When the company went after GoogleAdwords.com recently, Google spokesperson Jon Murchinson told me “We seek to recover domain names that are likely to confuse users into thinking that sites are authorized by Google. Our first step is to contact the domain registrant to express our concerns and seek a voluntary transfer of the domain name.â€
Of course the need to get this domain in its hands is exacerbated by the content showing up on the .net version right now. It’s an adult lander provided by TrafficZ.
Oranguatang says
How in hells name Can YT expect to File on a Domain which is a combo of generic English Words?
Criminal if the Ruling is in YT’s Favour! Some brains You must have in THE BEGGINING! Register ALL to Protect yourself and Corp trademark!DAAA!
Andrew says
@ oranguatang – fairly easily, actually. Although they should have gotten all of the versions to start, it was just a couple guys in the beginning. They saved $10, only to spend much more now.
Mike Green says
Goes to show you that you never really know the value of a domain name until a unique idea takes off, gets traffic!
Youtube.com was only registered approx 26 mths ago! I wonder how many domainers thought about grabbing that name but didn’t jump on the idea!
David J Castello says
The nail in the coffin for YouTube.net is that it is a unique phrase registered after YouTube.com.
They’re not going to get around a Bad Faith ruling.
Steve M says
YouTube.net’s sunk.
Even if; by some miracle; they prevailed w/the UDRP, Google will just take it from them in a US courtroom instead.
Demexii says
Youtube.net is going to be lost. Google owns the youtube trademark and it has to do with domain names so there is no way a court won’t hand it over. Hell, courts have handed it over when there was less support than Google has.
Antoinette says
Maybe it’s just me but it seems like a lot less trouble to just buy the name, then they could do an immediate transfer of ownership. But it seems like some corporate domain owners would rather pay lawyers and wait months for the case to make its way through the courts.
I understand that there would be a problem if YouTube.net was asking for an obscene amount of money. But I wonder if YouTube.com even made an offer to them before going to seek a ruling in it favor. I mean, how much is YouTube worth, millions? They’ll pay more in legal fees than they would if they would just buy out the YouTube.net owner.
Andrew says
@Antoinette – Given that they probably reached out to the person before filing the UDRP, they probably didn’t receive a satisfactory response. A lot of companies don’t want to pay anything for domains they can get in UDRP because it sends the wrong message — go ahead and buy our trademark domains and then we’ll pay you a modest fee to get them back.