Registrar Ads on “Coming Soon” Pages Need to Be Addressed

Unpaid parking still a common complaint in UDRP cases.

For many years domain name registrars have shown pay-per-click ads on domain names registered by their customers but not in use yet. It makes sense; the customer usually doesn’t care and it helps the registrar earn money and hopefully keep registration prices down. As far as I know, all major registrars show these ads.

The problem comes in when a domain gets hit with a frivolous UDRP case and the complainant points to ads on the “coming soon” page that may infringe on a particular use of a name as proof of bad faith. The respondent will argue that it had no control over the ads on the page, and that he didn’t earn money from the ads.

This is accurate, but many arbitrators are confused about domain parking. Sometimes they refer to cases that showed that, even though a computer system chose what links to post on the page, the registrant is ultimately responsible. They fail to understand the difference between a domain owner actively adding a parked page in an attempt to generate revenue and a registrant buying a domain and not using it right away — resulting in the registrar adding and profiting from a parked page.

Who does this hurt? It’s not a domainer issue. Domainers aren’t going to keep a registrar parked page up for long. It’s the typical joe end user who buys a domain for a planned business and doesn’t set up a web site right away that gets hurt.