A good way to waste a lot of money and get sued.
eBay seller priccut88 wants to help you land in legal hot water — all for a one time payment of just $2,000.
The user is selling a list that apparently has 25 million companies that haven’t yet registered their domain in .xxx.
Here’s the seller’s description:
This is your opportunity to cash in on billion dollar companies that are scrambling to register their domain names that end in .xxx. A recent court ruling has allowed domains ending in .xxx to be valid. With that, corporations ranging from Facebook, Wal-Mart, Google, General Electric, Yahoo, Ebay, etc have all scrambled to purchase their names ending in .xxx. For example, Facebook.com purchased Facebook.xxx. One person has already cashed in by purchasing a corporation name ending in .xxx and the corporation paid $164,000 to get the rights to their name.
Oh really? What domain was that?
Let me give you some advice: the $2,000 you spend on this list is just the beginning of the cash you’ll shell out once you get hit with a lawsuit.
Here’s another smart way to throw money down the drain: register a trademark in .xxx and then list it on eBay for some ridiculous sum.
That’s what a Connecticut man did with FoxStudios.xxx.
After registering the domain in December he listed it on eBay for a $1.975 million.
When you see something like this it’s a pretty good bet the person doesn’t know much about domain name law.
Fortunately for this registrant his only penalty will be handing the domain over.
Josh says
You could put up an ebay listing Andrew… something like ” List of 25 reason why not to purchase company names in .xxx ”
BIN of $1999
Shaun Pilfold says
The slogan for “.xxx” should be “the extension for no other reason than to make your pay to stop somebody else from using your brand”
@Domains says
Funny, back in the 90’s you could register lots of company.com’s when the internet laws were still murky. Not so today, however. I’m amazed some people still list trademark domains for sale on ebay.
rob sequin says
“Fortunately for this registrant his only penalty will be handing the domain over.”
I am not an attorney but TM infringement is much more serious.
They could sue you for damages to their brand for like $1million which would force you to get a good attorney and THEN make you pay damages to Fox… and I think they have good attorneys.
Andrew Allemann says
@ Rob Sequin – you’re right, the penalties can be much higher. ACPA calls for $100k per domain.
In this case though Fox has just filed a UDRP. In this case all you lose in the domain name. If they wanted something more they would have filed a lawsuit.
Josh says
Well… I think you could count actual judgements worth mentioning in your hand, proving damages is not easy and most of those were due to the defendant not showing up (out of country).
I am not saying it isnt without risk, just sayin.
Owen frager says
Rob,
They CAN sue but people with the limited biz experience to make these plays probably don’t have a lot of assets
Andrew Allemann says
Good news, folks! The starting bid for the xxx list has been reduced to only $500. That means more money for your legal bills!