Domain name registrar files UDRP complaints for its trademarks. You won’t believe where the domain names are registered.
Domain name registrar GoDaddy.com and its parent company have filed 4 UDRP cases with World Intellectual Property Organization this year. What’s interesting isn’t that a domain registrar is protecting its brands. It’s that many of the domains it is trying to get are registered at GoDaddy.
Of the four cases, two involve domain names at The Go Daddy Group’s Wild West Domains subsidiary and one is registered at GoDaddy.com.
odady.com – Wild West Domains
websitetonight.net – Wild West Domains
bigdaddyhostingco.com – GoDaddy.com
The last case involves three domain names that are registered at Tucows: gotodaddy.com, gotodaddynot.com, and gotodaddynot.net. These three are part of a long running dispute between DomainsNext.com (perhaps a Tucows reseller) and Go Daddy regarding its trademarks.
DomainsNext set up the latter two web sites as a gripe site to complain that Go Daddy objected to its use of GoToDaddy.com as a web site to offer domain registrations. DomainsNext argues that Go Daddy is overstepping its bounds regarding the use of the term “daddy”: “your effort to have a monopoly and exclusive right to the word daddy is illegal, and defies logic and business practices”.
Sorry DomainsNext. I think it’s entirely reasonable for Go Daddy to claim the rights to a domain name that looks a lot like “GoDaddy.com” offering competing services, and even to put pressure on a domain registrar that has “Daddy” in its name.
DomainsNext should be able to keep its bitter gripe sites as they are non-commercial, but GoToDaddy.com should be handed over.
As for the first three domains, it will be easy for the registrar to comply with the transfer order 🙂
Anything is possible. GoToDaddy.com does not look like GoDaddy.com at all. It’s all about use: GoDaddy had no problem with my parody site, GoMilfy.com 🙂
Doesn’t Godaddy charge a fee if a domain is frozen because of UDRP?
$ 29?? – $ 39??
A believe a registrar has the right to cancel/delete a domain in violation of their TOS. (terms of service).
Why didn’t they go that route?
Or, just take control the of the domain?
I guess that is the indirect question you are asking.
http://who.godaddy.com/WhoIs.aspx?domain=gotdaddy.com&prog_id=godaddy
LOL
Does GoDaddy (or one of it’s products) have the TM’d slogan “website tonight”? Or is there some other reason why they are attempting to claim the websitetonight.net domain?
Steve
oops … I mistyped websitetonight.COM when I went to check it prior to my comment … now that I’ve seen the actual site, I’ve answered my own question.
only with regard to competing services should the like name be a big deal.
@ Acro – GoToGoDaddy.com is selling competing product though.
@ Rick – Weird…although since the email address is gotfarmers.com there’s an explanation for that one.
Hello Andrew,
As you know I always read your articles and enjoy your website. Also, I own DomainsNext.com and MyDiscountDomains.com. The sole purpose for registering the three domain names gotodaddynot.com .net and .org, was to expose Godaddy’s practice of bait-and-switch by offering $6.95 for domain name transfers, only to lure other registrars’ customers to transfer their domain names to them, and I believe we have succeeded in part. If you noticed Godaddy’s Super Bowl ad this year, rather than saying “Register a domain name for $1.99”, they said “less than $1 a month” (I’m not sure of the exact wording.) We all know that Godaddy is the largest domain name registration company in the world. They should set an example for the rest of the registrars in all facets, including decency and honesty. Unfortunately they failed on both counts, by using sex and false advertising to promote their business. I was not shocked today when a young family member told me his friends at school after watching the Super Bowl commercial yesterday thought that Godaddy was a porn website, since they had no idea what is a domain name is. It is unfortunate that Bob Parsons thinks of himself as the next Hugh Hefner. Maybe he will wake up one day and realize he is not, and however there is a large audience for Godaddy girls, there are many more believers of the Bible, the Torah and the Koran.
It is ironic that they never asked for the domain name gotodaddy.org; they asked only for gotodaddy.com and .net. I wonder why? Since the three domain names have no monetary value, I really don’t care one way or another if WIPO gives the domain names to Godaddy or not, but I will not give the domains to them voluntarily. I am sure that Godaddy’s lawyers are enjoying getting paid for the hundreds of hours they are going to spend to get those domain names back. I don’t believe that Godaddy cares about those domain names, they just care about the negativity the domain names have created against their company. As to the domain name gotodaddy.com, I will not elaborate. You may be very mistaken by suggesting that I give this domain name to Godaddy, since you do not know all of the details surrounding the domain name, but I will keep you informed. For more info go to http://www.gotodaddynot.org.
Indeed, considering they very well can and it’s possibly more cost-efficient. Unless their registrants are in a position to sue, although their chances aren’t good given Go Daddy’s contract?
GoDaddy has completely dropped the ball lately and is seen by a lot of domainers as more a celebrity site than a serious domain registrar.
IMO registrar Name.com is leading the way in innovation and the new security features they introduced lately are benefiting real domainers. Plus they offer free domain privacy to stop those pesky whois sites from publishing your information in the search engines.
I am in the process of moving most of my domains to name.com after 5 years of being with godaddy. Godaddy’s time has gone.
@ Mansour – the gripe sites are fine, but from what I can tell GoToDaddy.com has always offered competing services.
I agree, the $1.99 domain thing was misleading. But you see that sort of thing in lots of industries.
I think GoDaddy didn’t just take the domains because they knew it would create controversy. It’s much safe to go this route.
Credit should be given to GoDaddy for taking the legal route and not putting themselves above the law and the existing process.
Enom have been known to simply take domains out of accounts if they contain ‘enom’, which at one time led to quite an interesting situation with a ‘genome’ domain.
2005 night of first superbowl GoDaddy ad, I registered (At GoDaddy) GoDaddyGirls.com and many more. The next morning GoDaddy paid me $1,000 for the one name. I have been a customer ever since and did the first TV ad in the early days not using Candice Michelle
AdJoe.com
When GD was planing to go public, they ask that I give up http://GoDummy.com, when they found that it was not in the Domain or hosting business its still in my GoDaddy account. This is a very good company and if anyone thinks they are not better and many of the reasons is Bob Parsons is not your “RUN OF THE MILL GEEK WEB GUY!!”
BJoe
Andrew,
Do you know the stats on GoDaddy’s 27 million domain names under management, (how many were gained as new registrations, and gained from domain transfer from other registrars to godaddy, namely network solutions and register.com)? My estimate, according to the number of my own customers’ domain names they took, is about 40% or 10 million. Does anybody know where to get those statistics? As to adjoe.com’s comment, that he sold the domain name godaddygirls.com to godaddy for $1,000, I would like you to know that you were gyped out of a minimum of $49 K. The domain’s minimum value is $50K, and can go as high as $150K if you were to sell it to someone who is interested in buying sex domain names. As to the domain name godummy.com, it does not have any aftermarket value. For that reason, they did not bother to take it from you. It doesn’t even include the word daddy. USPTO.gov has awarded a trademark Reg. # 3434814 for Godaddylures to a different company in Florida. Don’t forget that daddy is a generic word that could be used by anyone to register a domain name or apply for a trademark
Mansour.
I need to contact you because of a problem with a domain name registered at your company, please contact me at guschnit@hotmail.com
regards
gustavo
@ Mansour – I really don’t know where you could get those stats. Perhaps DailyChanges.com or RegistrarStats.com