Buyer may learn an expensive lesson.
In February a Chile man bought the domain name JustinTV.com for $32,500 on eBay.
JustinTV.com is, of course, often mistakenly typed in by people looking for the popular live TV site Justin.tv.
This wasn’t a problem for the seller of the domain. In his eBay listing he said his name was Justin and he registered the domain in 1999.
But he also noted that the domain receives 64,000 unique visitors per week. There’s a simple explanation for that — confusion.
Now the similarity between JustinTV.com and Justin.tv is a big problem for the buyer, who just got hit with a UDRP filing. Based on UDRP guidelines, the panel will consider that the domain was “registered” when the domain was transferred after the sale.
The new owner forwards the domain to a survey site that gives this alert to visitors:
Congratulations Justin TV User!
You are the [State] winner for April 9, 2012
Please select a prize and enter your email to claim
The owner also owns jtvshows.com, which forwards to a similar page.
Justin.tv previously won the domain name twich.tv through UDRP.
Mike says
Instead of JustinTV purchasing it from the rightful owner “Justin”, they probably waited until it sold to someone (not a “Justin”) and are now going to sleaze their way into a free domain.
So this is what its come to. Wow. Can we do that with the corner lot at Main and Trade Streets in Anytown USA? I’d love to get some grade-a commercial land just by COMPLAINING!
Andrew Allemann says
I wonder if Justin.tv would have gone after the domain had it not had a “survey” on it welcoming “Justin TV” visitors.
Ms Domainer says
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I think it’s likely that the new owner will lose this domain, one way or another, based on his usage of it.
Obviously, it was registered in bad faith–he bought it specifically to bleed traffic from Justin.tv and is obviously trying to scam landers with a bogus “You have won!” type message. He’s probably pharming for active email addresses for phishing purposes. Who knows what kind of malware may lurk on that site?
This idiot has more money than brains in that he was so blatant in buying an expensive domain (Thus, a lot of eyeballs on the auction itself) that is also close to a popular site.
Had the new buyer been named “Justin” and had used the domain for a personal site (without ads) and not blatantly trying to scam people, then he would probably be okay.
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John says
So far it seems to me the buyer has done nothing wrong.
For Mrs. Domainer to assume otherwise is just an assumption.
It sounds like Justin.tv is trying to sleaze their way into “ownership” of the domain.
These companies should be called out on this. As far as I’m concerned it is an attempt at domain theft by Justin.tv .
They must just be too embarrassed to pay for it and thought they could quietly harass the new buyer into parting with it.
Justin.tv should be ashamed of themselves IMO.
DomainersChoice.com says
The udrp rules simply s*ck. If you have registered some domains back in the days and later someone else got a TM for it, it will be next to impossible to sell to a 3rd party, as they might fear to loose the domain. Simply unjust imho.
Ron says
I have seen some comments in udrp filings, as to why parties have waited so long to file udrp’s this should be coming up more often.
Andrew Allemann says
@ Ron – won’t be an issue here. Technically they didn’t wait long once the current registrant “registered” the domain.
Ms Domainer says
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It is obvious that the new owner has purchased this domain for the sole purpose of bleeding traffic from Justin.tv to use for nefarious purposes.
A survey, indeed…
This “survey” is a lame attempt to part users from their money and give up their passwords while posing as Justin.tv.
Certainly, Justin.tv has the right to protect its reputation from this scammer.If not UDRP, then through the court system.
Like everyone else, I don’t like bogus UDRP filings and rulings, but we should also be outraged when scammers, even those with deep pockets, try to pose as established websites in order to rip others off.
Now THAT’S unjust.
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rs says
There are 2 domains in this case. The other is jtvshows.com which is redirected to justintv.com. When you visit it says I won an iphone5 or an ipad!
Joe says
Some people will never learn…
Les says
That’s a lot to pay (over 30 grand + legal issues) for a domain name. (deleted link)
Jon says
The topic of conversation here centers around the bad faith registration of the domain name but has anyone ever thought what intellectual rights the site justin.tv is breaking with it’s live streams?
John Berryhill says
“So far it seems to me the buyer has done nothing wrong.”
That’s simply crackers.
It is completely clear on inspection of the justin.tv and justintv.com sites that the purchaser of the domain name duplicated the header bar of the justin.tv site in order to convey the impression that visitors are at justin.tv for the purpose of serving up the scam survey lander.