129 reverse domain name hijacking cases and counting…
Today I’d like to introduce you to RDNH.com, a site that provides a database of reverse domain name hijacking cases under UDRP.
The site is a “collaboration” between myself, Nat Cohen, and David Lahoti.
I say “collaboration” because Nat has been doing most (all) of the work and David’s UDRPSearch.com has been a key data source. As for me, my only collaboration on the project is lending the RDNH.com domain 🙂
(I just happened to own RDNH.com – it’s not something I bought because of the Reverse Domain Name Hijacking acronym).
If you take a look at RDNH.com you’ll see that we have ambitions that aren’t being fulfilled yet. We’ve actually had the site up since December with the hope of “completing” it before telling people about it. But I think it’s important to get data out there even in the site’s incomplete state.
The key resource is the table of RDNH decisions. We’ve got 129 so far and need your help. If you’re aware of any RDNH cases that aren’t on the list, please leave a comment.
We’re also expanding the table to include more information. Stay tuned.
Thanks, good to have a database where we can all send nasty buyers to.
Am beside myself that a panel awards such attempts of a generic word, 2 letters or countries, to represent case history. Did someone actually award someone a TM on these? I’ll have to delve into these cases but certain to come up with more questions and unanswered queries than when I when I went in.
Elk.com is a free hunting/ lodging directory, aroma is parked with sex links. Nothing shocks anymore.
Andrew – thanks for the shout-out and for contributing your rdnh.com domain. I’d also like to recognize Michael Sumner who did all the work to set up the site and Elliot Silver whose research identified several of the cases.
Sounds like a great project.
Funny that you bought the domain and the acronym turned into something useful… and valuable 🙂
Nice when that happens.
Congrats.
@ Rob Sequin – it’s really dumb luck…I probably own just a few four letter domains.
Not dumb luck… long shot maybe but heard somewhere that luck is the preparation for opportunity.
We all get lucky sometimes 🙂
Congrats, Andrew, looks like a very useful project. Anyway it looks down from here.
Whilst RDNH decisions give a glimpse into the much larger problem of TM owners overreaching, they also show that UDRP works.
The bigger question is: Is there a way to educate lawyers so that they advise their clients correctly and refuse to bring abusive UDRP complaints?
@gpmgroup – I wouldn’t draw the conclusion from some RDNH decisions that the UDRP works. My conclusion is that it works – some of the time.
There are many cases that seem to be clear-cut RDNH cases but the panels don’t issue that finding. From one of my blog posts-
“Even in cases that would seem clear-cut to the rest of us, panels don’t find RDNH. For examples, one can cite Cite.com (panelist too lazy) and Imagem.com (complainant’s attorney too confused) or LaFrance.com (complaint brought to harass but complainant didn’t use a lawyer), all written up by Andrew Allemann, or the UDRP case on the 18-year-old domain LMC.com, written up by attorney Bret Moore.”
Because the RDNH finding carries no consequences, many panels don’t seem to go to the trouble of considering it.
Or they apply vastly different standards of bad faith to the domain owner than the complainant. Panels regularly find a domain owner guilty of a bad faith registration if years later an auto-generated ad on a parked page references the Complainant or a competitor.
But there have been many cases where a Complainant filed a UDRP for a domain that was registered before the Complainant was even in existence which is a clear-cut abuse of the UDRP, and even so many panels let the Complainant in these cases off without a RDNH finding.
One clear piece of evidence for how little respect Reverse Domain Name Hijacking gets is that WIPO (and I believe the other forums) don’t even report which cases are RDNH in their case summaries nor do they keep any updated stats on them.
As to your comment about educating lawyers not to bring abusive complaints – the lawyers are paid good money to bring these cases, and unfortunately sometimes they win – see Vanity.com for example – or any of the cases on the 2009 UDRP Wall of Shame http://udrpwallofshame.com/.
Great plans.
Was it deliberate to ignore Rick Schwartz, the domain king, who has been blogging quite a lot on this? I’m just curious as to where he fits in all of this. Thanks
Nat, thanks for the detailed reply and the interesting link.
Wouldn’t good tests of whether RDNH is an effective way of preventing UDRP abuse be:
(i) How the lawyers behave after they have had a decision awarded against them?
Are there any lawyers or law firms with more than 1 RDNH decisions awarded against them?
(ii) How lawyers behave when panelists decline to award RDNH in cases where it seems on the surface at least to be an obvious omission?
Are there any lawyers or law firms who repeatedly lose at UDRP in attempting to secure valuable “generic” names for their clients?
@gpmgroup-
those are good questions and I don’t know the answers.
One indication that RDNH is not an effective deterrent is that RDNH decisions are on the rise, with five issued so far this year – a new record.
Introducing RDNH.com: a database of reverse domain name hijacking cases – Domain Name Wire