Prank dialing services fight it out in UDRP.
After starting prank dialing service PrankDial.com, Fahim Saleh was a little miffed that another site called PrankDialer.com came along. So he filed for domain arbitration against PrankDialer.com owner Trey Glauser, who also has a handful of similar domains.
Saleh’s argument for trademark rights to PrankDial.com were rather weak, and the common term certainly wouldn’t hold weight against PrankDialer.com. The arbitrator on the case found that Saleh had not obtained common law rights to the Prank Dialer mark.
PrankDial.com lets people prank call friends through an online interface. In his defense, Glauser noted that PrankDialer.com offers a completely different service: rick rolling by phone.
The arbitrator did not consider charging Saleh with reverse domain name hijacking, perhaps because neither party used counsel in the dispute. It’s disappointing that the arbitrator didn’t consider this nor rule on anything other than confusing similarity. I guess it was a quick way for the arbitrator to pocket his $1,000 fee and move on.
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