LivingSocal.com — a typo of LivingSocial.com or short for Living SoCal?
Last year Living Social started to go after a number of typo domain names through UDRP. I expressed concern about the domain name LivingSocal.com.
Unfortunately, I called this one. LivingSocial just filed a UDRP against LivingSoCal.com. (The complainant’s identity hasn’t been unveiled, but it’s a good bet.)
Is it a typo of LivingSocial.com? Sure, it’s off by one letter.
But SoCal is also short for Southern California.
It happens that the domain owner lives in Los Angeles, so he has a legitimate interest in the domain name.
The one strike against the owner (that I know about right now) is the domain led to a parked page with links related to daily deals sites.
It will be interesting to see how this one turns out.
Mike says
The parking page with daily deal ads might end up biting LivingSoCal in the butt. I too am looking forward to seeing the outcome of this UDRP.
Rob says
so, socal is short for southern california. good one. what about soccer calisthenics? or so calorific? or sodium calcitrate? or soya calories?
i laugh at some of the justifications used to sit on domains. do you think there is any desire there for livingsocial to come and offer big money for the typo? nah, no way, there are just so many other “legitimate” uses for that domain.
Andrew Allemann says
@ Rob – Far from a justification. A very common term. See SocalTech.com, or just google socal and see what comes up.
Josh says
I could be wrong but I believe the owner tried to sale the name to them as well. Someone I know just checked their email and on March 3rd 2011 he said he was working on selling the name to livingsocial.com, starting price was $25k. Now did he approach them or they him, no idea but the person I know obviously decided to pass at any price once hearing this. just a fyi
Josh says
Did he park the name after march 3rd 2011? That would for sure show bad faith since he obviously knew of their existance at this point and as we know having ads which infringe or compete with a company you KNOW exists is a death blow most times.
Josh says
Just checked your sites archives and on June 28th 2011 a poster “Tom” said he thought ownership just changed hands, if that is so it is VERY bad for him if he wasnt the original registrant (unsure since whois is private from 2009-current owner) however registrars changed so tip off there as to possible purchase. Any way they may have been a NEW registrant, approached them to buy, that fell through and then parked the name…1 2 3 strikes youre out!
Josh says
After looking at each whois history I now debate the fact it may have sold as “Tom” posted june 2011. May still be same owner since 2009 or sooner, may.
Either way it doesnt look good, do you recall when you first noticed he was parking the name Andrew?
Andrew Allemann says
Domain was regged in 2009. Privacy up until UDRP filed. I don’t recall about the parking, but it may have been registrar parking.
Josh says
Ok, in that case it may not be an issue… we will see I guess. Looks like $25k was too rich for livingsocial, strange.
Just Joshing says
“Looks like $25k was too rich for livingsocial, strange.”
Actually Josh there is nothing strange about that at all. The domain name is not worth 25K to anyone, including living social. Way too much for a typo, at least that typo.
Josh says
Perhaps, I guess it is a matter of what you think you are losing or losing to other competitors potentially.
Ironically $25k wouldnt have been too high for some domainers considering the traffic I imagine it received and the industry.
Carta says
Ridiculous. Did livingsocial even look at the livingsocal site? The owner of livingsocal is a real estate agent in Southern California and the adds on the page are just Google AdSense adds. The landing page looks like some blog of market research in the area. Nothing close to the look and feel or functionality of livingsocial. Looks to me like a lame attempt by the man to strong arm the little guy to give up his site.
tom says
Turns out livingsocial lost this case. Score one for the little guy! What Livingsocial tried to do is called “Reverse Domain name Hi-jacking”, and they lost. If it’s so important to them why don’t they just buy it from this person instead of trying to steal it.