Dropbox.com now forwards to GetDropbox.com.
TechCrunch noticed that popular web backup tool Dropbox has acquired the domain name Dropbox.com, which forwards to its web site GetDropbox.com. Hopefully this will be a lesson to web startups to not be stingy with their initial domain purchase, as it costs them lots more money in the long run. Dropbox’s parent company had sued to get the domain name, but recently dismissed the case. That likely means the two parties settled.
Although I don’t agree on his comment about meaningless names, Jason Kincaid’s explanation of the problem is something domainers have been preaching for a long time:
It’s hard to gauge just how important a good domain name is to a startup’s success — after all, we’ve seen plenty of companies with meaningless names do very well for themselves. But there’s a difference between a name that’s gibberish and one that’s very easy to confuse with something else, which is a test that Dropbox failed with its GetDropbox domain. As the service has grown, so too has the amount of traffic heading to Dropbox.com, which has just featured a placeholder page full of ads. According to Compete, Dropbox.com had nearly 60,000 unique visitors last month. It’s impossible to know how many of them eventually made it to the correct domain, but there’s no doubt Dropbox has been losing out on plenty of traffic and customers. This is a big win for the startup.
Did the previous owner register it before the trademark was registered? From the comments on TechCrunch, it sounded like DropBox sued for the name in court.
The term “drop box” is in the dictionary, and has been part of the English language since 1860. That seems pretty generic to me.
Not so clearly a name domain squatter.
It sounds like, though, that the owner put up ads for DropBox’s competition…
Thanks Jorge. TechCrunch updated its story. The owner registered the domain prior to DropBox launching its product, so it had rights to use the domain. However, he cannot use it in a way that infringed DropBox’s trademark. It looks like the domain was previously used for a web hosting company.