Group goes after company promoting WordPress assistance with domain names that include “WordPress”.
WordPress Foundation, the charitable organization founded by Matt Mullenweg for the WordPress open source project, has sued the owner of TheWordPressHelpers.com and other domains. The lawsuit alleges that Edward Jeffrey Yablon and PC-VIP, Inc. are infringing WordPress’ trademarks and that the use of the domain names constitutes cybersquatting.
The defendants own a number of WordPress related domain names including TheWordPressHelpDesk.com, TheWordPressTrainers.com, TheWordPressTeachers.com, TheWordPressDoctors.com, WordPressTraffic.com and TheWordPressTutors.com. These domain names forward to TheWordPressHelpers.com.
WordPress Foundation has guidelines for how third parties can use the WordPress trademarks. One of the guidelines is that they must not be used in domain names.
According to the lawsuit, WordPress Foundation reached out to defendants multiple times this year, asking them to stop using the trademarks. Not only did they not stop, but on May 12, defendant Yablon instituted an opposition proceeding with the USPTO Trademark Trial and Appeal Board to try to halt one of WordPress’ trademark applications.
The lawsuit (pdf) is seeking the defendants to stop using the trademarks, dismiss the opposition proceeding, hand over any profits related to use of the WordPress marks, pay up to $100,000 per infringing domain name, transfer the domain names and pay other fees and damages.
Andrew: I am the person The WordPress Foundation has filed their spurious lawsuit against.
If your job ends at writing up articles based on press releases then this offer may not be of interest to you. However: if you are interested in pursuing this story I’d be happy to discuss the details … many of which are recounted in the suit erroneously.
Additionally, if any other members of the press are interested, I’ll make myself available for interview on this matter. I may be contacted as noted on the “contact us” page at TWPH: http://goo.gl/XHkWvE
Thank you,
Jeff Yablon
I’m not a lawyer, but I’ve been following this saga since the beginning and I’m so glad the WordPress Foundation is finally taking action against you.
Jesus, man, could you possibly be more of a tool? Your behavior has been ridiculous.
Jeff, this wasn’t a press release.
Thank you Andrew. I asked because it kinda read like one (and) if they didn’t leak it the other choice would have seemed to be that you look for lawsuits and write about them.
AND it seemed to me that if that was the way you guys found this you would have found the opposition to their trademark application too (first, six weeks ago)
Appreciate the answer!
I found it because I monitor trademark lawsuits involving domain names. I found the opposition only because it was referenced in the lawsuit.
The Foundation’s statement (and the community’s sentiment) clearly expects one not to use ‘WordPress’ in a top-level domain…
“Under no circumstances is it permitted to use WordPress or WordCamp as part of a top-level domain name.”
http://wordpressfoundation.org/trademark-policy/
Use of ‘WordPress’ as a subdomain seems to be within allowed use, I’d guess especially if its content is not commercial in nature… idk, thats my best guess =)
I acquired a domain with ‘WordPress’ awhile back with no intention to use it, wanted to secure it and transfer to the Foundation… reached out a few times and have gotten no response… have it forwarding to wordpress.org for now…
If anyone from the Foundation happens to read this… I’d love to get WordPressMultisite .com transferred to the Foundation for safekeeping (and hopefully developement; imho, it’d make a killer resource site for the community and web at large =)
Thanks Max, that was very thoughtful of you. Sorry we dropped the ball on your e-mails, but I’ll send you one to work out the transfer details.
( Sending it to the address listed on the WHOIS record for wpmsnetworks.com. )
It’d be great to bring up your ideas for the site with the Docs team on Slack; they’re the ones who manage resources like the Developer Hub, Codex, etc. Check out https://chat.wordpress.org for info on connecting, if you’re not on there already.
Transfer Complete =)
Thanks Max 🙂
Wow, time to delete my site for local WordPress development. I don’t want to get sued and if that means not promoting my services *AND* the WordPress platform, so be it. WordPress lost points in my mind
Hi Nathan,
The trademark rules don’t apply to local development environments, nor do they apply to promoting WordPress services or the platform itself. They apply to using WordPress as part of a top-level domain, such as wordpresshelpers, wordpressteachers, or any other incarnation like this. Of course, something.extension/WordPress is fine, as is using WordPress as a keyword or of course offering WordPress services. WP is also fine instead of WordPress. I’m not sure why you would think that your local development environment falls under this. This rule isn’t new, or compicated, and is no different than any other trademark being protected.
How about WordpressWordPolice.org? Would that be ok?
Who will watch the watchman?
I first had an experience on the WordPress.org forums. The organisation would give support and then post links to their website that included “wordpress” in the domain name. It is logical that people on the ‘wordpress.org’ domain name would think that a link with ‘wordpress’ in it could be associated to ‘wordpress.org’. It is not coincidence that the organisation in question is also selling WordPress services. Fortunately, forum moderators have cleaned that up/
Good. I hope wp Sues that dude for all he’s got
The WordPress helpers should help themselves.
I’m not a lawyer, but when reading the opposition proceeding, he brings up quite a few good points, especially the point about a certain SEO plugin which is doing everything against the rules and guidelines and doing so “unpunished”…
If that person uses WordPress in his/her domain name about the plugin, then maybe only a matter of time before the WordPress Foundation goes after him/her.
Cops don’t realistically catch every driver who violates the speed limit. However, speeding isn’t an acceptable behavior — and isn’t allowed by law in many places.
Although I agree with what you say, I get the idea that in the case of the SEO plugin mentioned in the opposition proceeding, it seems to be “protected” and “above the law” for some reason. Just have a look at what the plugin does which is in direct violation (multiple points) of the official guidelines for plugins.
i think this is not ok, what wordpress is doing
It seems a bit of bullying. Trademarks are about brand confusion and anybody that’s used the web and knows wordpress knows a domain like wordpresshelpers or wordpressmasters is not wordpress.org.
I can’t see the problem. WordPress as a Trademark is owned by the WordPress Foundation, end of story.
If it’s such a big deal for the owner of the domain in question, he should have done his research before deciding on a brand name.
This is actually pretty simple and one need not be a trademark attorney to navigate the matter.
The WordPress foundation owns the ‘WordPress” trademark. As such, they get to dictate its use. This is precisely what trademark ownership is.
As the owner of the trademark, the WordPress Foundation doesn’t have to let anyone use it at all. For anything. And yet they do, as detailed in their guidelines.
The use of the trademark in a TLD clearly defies the trademark use guidelines as set forth by the trademark owner.
The site in question making use of the trademark in a TLD is in breach of the trademark owner’s terms of use, therefore.
I do hope all parties involved can come to an amicable resolution before things go ‘too far’. Seems they may already have, though.
All the best — and be well,
AJ
> The WordPress foundation owns the ‘WordPress” trademark. As such, they get to dictate its use.
Actually they don’t get to dictate its use, the law gets to do that.
The law, as it relates to this matter, is there to reinforce legal ownership rights. The overarching principle of ownership is that the owner of the thing owned gets to determine its use.
The law can tell me I can’t have chickens and a chicken coop in my yard, for example, but it’s still my yard.
Further, you can’t use the fact that my yard has the greenest grass in the neighborhood as a reason to set up a lemonade stand in my yard if I don’t want you there. No matter how loudly you protest, you have no right to be there absent my consent, and if you don’t move it along when I repeatedly ask you to, the law will enforce my ownership rights. That the law reinforces my dictation does not mean that the law, itself, has dictated anything.
Best,
AJ
Yeah, that’s not what I meant.
The WPF has trademarked the word WordPress in the category computer software.
As far as I know it (WPF) can therefore not “dictate” that others cannot use the word WordPress in a TLD whilst these other parties do something different than said computer software.
Yeah, that would be a pretty bullying and inaccurate usage of trademark law, trying to say you own any references or usage of a word…
Owning a trademark gives you no such right.
http://corporate.findlaw.com/intellectual-property/ours-works-better-use-of-a-competitor-s-trademark-in-advertising.html
All it does is stop other people from claiming they are you, being misleading with your official brand. It’s a slippery slope many big powerful corporations try to claim, ownership of a word or phrase, stifling free speech and clear derivatives and deviations. It doesn’t make it right just because Facebook or Marvel’s lawyers try to do the same thing. I’m not sure where anybody got the idea owning a trademark means you own any usage of a word or phrase. It’s just official brand distinction… The only actual property in question here is the domains other people bought, not belonging to wordpress.com. If “it’s my property I can do what I want” is the view, you’d think they can do what they want with the domains they bought if they aren’t claiming to be the official wordpress.com…
These are the rules, as simple as that. Would be crazy if everybody starts using trademarks as they see fit.
The most bizar thing is that Jeff Yablon is trying to influence the Wordpress community to be against the trademark rules.
Grow up and follow the rules!
These aren’t trademark rules. That’s like Facebook saying you can’t start with Face or use the word Book. Their business is promoting and supporting Wordpress. Trademark rules are just there to prevent confusion of official brands, not from using words and terms in your name when it’s clear you are a different organization. Anybody who’s familiar with the internet know there are endless variations of domain names. The only thing I would agree with here is a clear statement they are not wordpress.com or wordpress.org. If someone confuses facebooksucks.com with Facebook.com they are not being smart and trademark lawsuits from using the words face or book or Facebook restrict free speech more than anything else if there’s good faith not to pretend you are that brand.
Go register “spidermanforum.com” and see how fast Marvel comes a knockin. I know a small press publisher who published a minicomic called “Super Hero Happy Hour” about generic superheroes in a bar…and was sued jointly by Marvel/DC who CO-OWN the trademark of “Super Hero”. The minicomic made like a hundred bucks at a convention show, but they shut him down with a thud anyway.
Facebook sues people too for using face or book in social networking sites or anything involving an “online community”. They’re wrong too. Just because big corporations have the same behavior doesn’t excuse it in the open source community. Trademarks are to avoid official brand confusion. What’s confusing about wordpresshelpers for people who help with wordpress vs wordpress.com or wordpress.org? Maybe I’m just weird that the difference is clear to me, but I kind of doubt it. Trademark laws are not there to prevent references to a product. This is actually a weird way to grab countless domain names without paying for them.
Other Sites such as PayPalSucks.com have been online for years. Granted I don’t know how much PayPal have or if even tried to shut them down…
WordPressSucks.com is registered already and may just become a little bit more popular.
theWordPressHelpers.com has been a helpful resource for the WP community and yet the WordPress Foundation would rather see shut down instead of encouragements… Todays money and corporations power is becoming a disgrace to humanity.
Again, I’m not a lawyer, but reading plain (albeit legal) English is not really hard.
If you simply would take some time to read through the legal files – for example the lawsuit WPF has filed – you can see that the word WordPress is only trademarked as “computer software”.
The logo of WPF is registered in more categories than only “computer software”, but that is not up for debate here.
Now whatever thewordpresshelpers.com is doing (and it doesn’t seem an awful lot actually), one thing it clearly is NOT doing and that is advertising itself as WordPress computer software.
So, whether you agree or not with all of this, according to the letter of the law, this seems to be a pretty clear case.
Then as a bonus, I will share with you this: it is not up to the entity that has registered a trademark to “design” a trademark policy. That as a matter of fact is up to the law.
If you are inspired by the content of the page and want to follow it, that is your own free choice, but according to the letter of the law it seems it is all fluff and has no legal legs to stand on.
See also the interesting tail of the discussion over at WP Tavern of 3 years ago: http://wptavern.com/friendly-reminder-about-the-wordpress-domain-trademark#comment-39984
Will PC-VIP, Inc be forming a charitable organization to counter-sue Wordpress’s charitable organization?
is this the first time they have sued someone for this? i know its a general rule, but ive never seen them inforce it by suing
Technically speaking, you can trademark / copyright either, 1.) the look of the word “WordPress” with your specific typeface and style, or 2.) You could trademark the word generally, “WordPress”, then you control everything… including WordPress Energy Drinks. WordPress Foundations has trademarked the word. Period. There will be no WordPress Energy or Programming Drinks. Sorry. They do allow usage to a degree as other pointed out. But explicitly restricted the TLD usage.
Facebook has the right to “bully” or rather, enforce the law upon infringers of the name. It’s not just the look they’re protecting, it’s the brand. The trademark / copyright is what gives them legal standing to do so.
I know it doesn’t seem fair. But take the “Super Hero” example above. A co-owned trademark sued a small guy? Really? Yes.
Also, Disney sued a woman in California for owning fake copies of DVDs she bought in a resell shop.
Motorola has actually paid Lucas Arts to use the name “Droid” on their phones. Why? Because Lucas was smart and trademarked the name Droid for it’s movies. They want to control the use of that word so Deep Space 9 does have a “Droid” attack. It would dilute the brand.
Go infringe on Rosetta Stone. They will take you to the cleaners without blinking an eye or having an emotion.
WordPeress Helpers said that from their launch in January 2015 they’ve had trouble with WordPress regarding the TLD. So it’s not like they just sat around. They pounced. What would you do if you owned a global brand? Ignore violations? I think WPhelpers.com has a nice ring to it.
It seems silly to a lot of people, that is because they’ve never dealt with this level of trademark violations before. This is top-level infringement. (Pun intended.)
*EDIT*
1.) Lucas Arts does NOT want a Droid invasion to happen in Deep Space 9. Just to clarify.
2.) Typo *WordPressHelpers. Second to last paragraph.
Jason, you did a great job with that, in all regards save one: they have no trademark on the word EXCEPT as it applies to internet-based software-publishing services.
That’s what we are in dispute over. They now want a more general “use of the word on the Internet” trademark. And if they get the trademark (which they they only just filed for in 11/2014), you can count on them then telling anyone who has been using it in a subdomain that what they previously allowed is no longer allowed.
So hate me if you like, but if you’re one of those people then along with doing what I’m doing for my site, I’m trying to do you a favor.
I don’t hate that. Nice reply. That was very short-sighted on WPF’s part. They ought to grant this guy permission and then wrangle the TM in. They’re fighting two battles on one front. Dumb.
“He who writes the contract has the obligation to make it clear.” – Maxim of Law
That is exactly what I understood from the legal docs linked to from the article. The WPF has trademarked the word ONLY in the category computer software. They have filed to cover much more, but that filing is from November 2014 and that is what you (Jeff Yablon) are objecting about.
People are way too opinionated to be able to read a legal document. Waste of space really most of the comments here.
And agreeing or not agreeing has nothing to do with it either. To the letter of the law Jeff is right and the WPF is not, it is really that simple.
and again, I am not a lawyer, but I can ready English.
read (last sentence)
Thanks, Piet … now if I can just survive long enough to get all the necessary judges to see that … 😉
It really doesn’t look like Facebook or Marvel have the legal right to control any use of words in domains that they trademark either. Trademark seems solely concerned with brand control and preventing confusion. They can sue people who capitalize on misspelling or seek to deceive seems to be the actual limit. I wouldn’t want Facebook or Marvel or Wordpress to control references to ideas words or products on the internet or in names that clearly parody or differentiate.
http://facebooksucks.com seems to be up and running with a disclaimer though maybe they’re too afraid by now to make anything more public. Facebook seems to have only won lawsuits of cybersquatting where people seemed to bank on misspellings, not honest parody.
I found this and it’s a bit dense for me but http://blog.ericgoldman.org/archives/2013/12/ninth-circuit-kills-contributory-acpa-cybersquatting-doctrine-petronas-v-godaddy.htm seems to clearly indicate trademark law isn’t concerned with people referencing a brand. It’s only about people deceiving others about the source or endorsement of their own services, or those harming a brand based on confusion. I don’t see any cases where Facebook WON a court case based on someone using their name in a clear distinguished website, like facebooksucks.com, only in the typos court cases where it seemed like clear intent to deceive based on misspellings. Them and Marvel seem to bleed people dry with litigation but was there ever a case where someone lost using a clearly distinguished complementary brand like themacguru.com?
Why doesn’t the WPF sue wordpressseobyyoast.com while they’re at it?
THAT’s a great question. In fact, even better than you might realize.
First, WordPress SEO by Yoast is the name of a product, and it is interesting that WordPress, which of course knows it exists SINCE IT’S THE MOST POPULAR PLUGIN AT WORDPRESS.COM, is OK with it. I asked that question in my trademark opposition.
Second, yep, there IS a wordpressseobyyoast.com, but it doesn’t belong to yoast, so … either WordPress or yoast has the issue with them that WordPress says they have with me.
But that one is actually worse. That domain has nothing to do with WordPress, Yoast, or even SEO. So they are after one of two things: traffic (so they HAVE some SEO juice, eh?), or to be bought by either WordPress or yoast.
That last one is the very definition of cybersquatting, which isn’t OK in the USA. The domain appears to be registered in Panama, though, and anonymously, which makes finding the owner difficult.
THAT SAID: in the USA the entire idea of trademark includes the obligation to go after every party who infringes on yours, and if you do not face losing any trademark you have. So think about it: is WordPress aware that domain exists? Have they gone after them? NO? NO TRADEMARK, THEN.
And there are many, and WordPress knows it. For example:
http://ineedhelpwithwordpress.com, http://publishingwithwordpress.com, wordpresshelp.com, wordpresshelper.com, http://thewordpressguide.com/,http://thewordpressguy.net/, http://thewordpress.net/, wordpressrockers.com,
virtualwordpressassistant.com, http://www.thewordpresszone.com/, http://thewordpressninja.com/, http://thewordpress.ru/,
http://thewordpressgroup.com/, http://www.thewordpresstemplates.com/,
http://www.wordpressboys.com/, http://wordpressweekly.com/
Every one of those has w-o-r-d-p-r-e-s-s in the domain. Most are older than we are. WordPress hasn’t gone after them. The trademark we are fighting over, therefore isn’t issuable.
Piet, I’ve tried to answer that question but the commenting system sees a few urls I’ve included as illustration for my answer and is rejecting the comment. Hopefullly, it takes this: http://thewordpresshelpers.com/wordpress-trademark-lawsuit#urls-with-wordpress-in-them
Piet, the system won’t take my reply because it has an url in it, but if you go the page at our site on this suit you’ll see a great answer; your question is even better than you likely realized.
I indeed didn’t realise that Jeff, glad that I brought it up though, hope it helps to open some people’s eyes…
Wordpress is made available, free of charge, despite it being a commercially viable product. That’s so that us guys can use it without having to make a financial investment. Personally I make that awesome with a capital awe.
Then someone comes along and decides to try and monetise somebody else’s hard work. That’s so they can exploit that commercial viability, without putting the work in of building the product. Personally, I make that offensive with a capital off.
If you’re unhappy with the terms of use, then invest the thousands of hours necessary and create yablonpress, and set as many constraints upon the use of that word as you like. I’ll not hold my breath…
Thanks for your perspective, Mike. It’s not original, of course
And to a point it has validity. But I find it pretty funny, nonetheless; this is how grown-ups do business. If you want to follow your parents’ rules all your life, I wish you luck and admire your choices.
Yes, my parents did set me rules, ones that I still follow. Those rules included things called morals, ethics, and other words you’ll not understand very well.
Ah, but that’s where you’re mistaken. I ABSOLUTELY understand those things and I have children of my own who have been taught them and believe their father to be TOO ethical.
I believe the mistake you’re making is in believing that this is a conversation about any of those things. It is not. WordPress is a business and they are doing business as they believe is correct. We all do that; I admire that it’s so simple for you. Best of luck.
I agree with Mike. You profited of their brand. You agreed to their terms of use when you downloaded it. Unless you never read it. They don’t require much to use their awesome system that they have made completely free to anyone. They don’t try and profit of your brand. They just ask for people like you not to profit of their brand. Its pretty simple stuff. I put about 5 hours into a pretty cool theme that I share on wordpress.org. And I would a little bugged if someone profited of something that I offered for free. So the only person mistaken is you. Its as simple as that. Maybe you really didn’t know? Did you think it was OK?
By nature, people profit from the things they download from (or contribute) to the WordPress ecosystem. WordPress knows this, and certainly has no issue with it. In fact, they encourage it (else, no one would contribute) so your argument is kind of flat.
In the simplest terms, Mike or anyone can take a moral position, and I get that. And if they have “you can do anything you like including editing the code but excluding using the string w-o-r-d-p-r-e-s-s in your product service, or domain name” in their actual terms of service (which they do not, AND c’mon, no-one reads), your point would take on new meaning. But this was never about that. It was a matter of correct application of trademark, which WordPress has messed up since the beginning and which I was testing, for the benefit of the WordPress Community. I’ll explain:
WordPress has a number of trademarks on specific things. The nine-character string is not one of them (although it will be soon unless someone objects; they applied for that trademark after I started using the string).
So we start there: WordPress does not have the legal right to have this argument, specifically.
However, they do ASK that people not use the string in primary domain names. So they had an issue with http://thewordpresshelpers.com , but in their policy statement on the matter they say explicitly that they are ok with you using, http://wordpress.mydomain.com . In fact, I have a contract with them where they have explicitly granted me permission to use http://wordpress.answerguy.com .
WordPress and I have negotiated that contract, and it lasts in perpetuity and would be binding on another company that buys WordPress. And until they change their policy you would have the right to do the same thing. But I believe they filed for the new trademark on the nine letter string because they are getting ready to stop allowing that.
They can grant me rights as they have. But they can also change the policy that people have thought I’ve “violated”. Everything is normal to that point. But now we get to the purpose of trademark and how trademark actually works.
The purpose of trademark is very simple: it’s to prevent people from confusing you with the party that holds the mark. We always believed that there was no chance of that, but because we were being respectful of WordPress’ rights we always also have had a disclaimer on every page of The WordPress Helper making it very clear that we are not them, nor associated with them. So “the spirit of the law” (speaking of policy) was always adhered to.
Besides that, the real issue is that in order to maintain a trademark (once issued, and again, WordPress does not yet have a trademark on “the nine letters”), you MUST defend it against ALL infringers. The only wriggle room there would be “I didn’t know party x was infringing”, and that isn’t much of a wriggle in The Internet Age when you are a company in WordPress’ position. They always know.
And that’s the rub.
WordPress is and has always been aware that many, MANY parties were using the nine letters. You can find those yourself, easily. And they’ve gone after nearly none of them. In fact, the most popular plug-in in the WordPress software repository was named, until changed just a few weeks ago, “WordPress SEO by Yoast”. BY NATURE, the fact that WordPress knew and never did anything about that would seem to invalidate a trademark on the nine letters if they had one in place (again, they do not).
In other words, WordPress turns their head when they think it benefits them. That’s simply not how trademark works, and the fact that they allow use of the nine letters in subdomains but not top-level domains should be something that anyone creating for WordPress should be concerned about.
Which, finally, brings us back to the place where the moral and the legal issues converge. And while I’ve never said this publicly until now, that’s what I was testing, from the beginning … and for the benefit of the entire WordPress community. As many people have pointed out, I didn’t need this fight; I thought the community needed it and took it up on the community’s behalf.
The contract I mentioned above was just signed yesterday. In it, I have promised to withdraw my objection to WordPress being issued a trademark on the nine letters.That contract has already been leaked to the press by WordPress and republished by their mouth organ WPTavern (https://cloudup.com/cLmq3DWS6MZ) .
The saga ends there for me; I have a license to use the nine letters, now. But assuming that the trademark on the nine letters is granted—and I’ve agreed to withdraw my objection to it—everyone else’s rights will soon be gone. And if WordPress decides to change their policy, as I predict they will, there will be nothing you can do about it.
It looks like the defendant gave the domain name to WordPress. Case has been dismissed.
Hahahahahaha so much for Mr Yablons determination to see this through hten
.
I DID see it through. To me “it” never meant either “win”, or “beat WordPress”. And I was always clear about that.
The goal was to get a license to use the nine letters, AND I GOT THAT. No, not the way I wanted, but I got it. And when trademark gets approved and most people don’t have that license (and WordPress starts enforcing the trademark), I’ll be covered.
And yes, I just spun that, but I also told the truth, as I always have. Vaya con Dios.
You’ll probably not ‘get’ this – this type of humour doesn’t travel that well – but with a bit of luck you’ll get the sentiment:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ikssfUhAlgg
No, Mike, I get it. But in fact I’m not dead yet.
The WordPress Helpers in its original form is near-dead (the Internet never forgets, and we are leaving the old pages up—for whatever that’s worth), but WP has “beaten” neither me nor the company I work for … and, I will always believe, shot themselves in the foot in doing things the way they did.
But http://thewebsitehelpers.com and http://thecmshelpers.com are coming.
As you and the Pythons said, I’m Not Dead Yet.
Anyone can use trademarks like “wordpress” for subdomains.
I dont think what Wordpress doing is right, i am providing a wordpress support service. and name is WPApoyo , so my name have wp in it, will that affect us ?
It’s totally fine to have the `wp` abbreviation in the domain name; it’s only a violation of the trademark if the full `WordPress` name is used. So, “wordpressapoyo.com” would be a violation, but “wpapoyo.com” fine.
Andrew ,
I read the article & the comments by all members here.
I own a premium domain https://www.wpdeveloper.com , which is an abbreviation for WordPress Developer .
Infact I’m a Professional PHP/MySQL/WordPress freelancer building Custom Websites & Applications for clients across globe.
Throughout 2007 & 2008 , I was looking for a domain exclusively for my WordPress projects portfolio & at that time there were lot of domains available with WordPress in it , but I didn’t fall for it , because I knew at sometime sooner or later , the people behind WordPress would come after me for Trademark & Copyright infringement & was not willing to take a chance.
One day I was lucky to come across a person in LinkedIn or Facebook or through some marketing channel , that he was willing to sell his domain http://www.wpdeveloper.com & I immediately contacted him , explained him about the use of the domain for my profession & I requested him to sell it to me.
You wouldn’t believe , I paid a decent price 10 years ago (2009) to acquire it.
The process was very straight forward & simple / transparent.
I have been using it for almost 10 years & get decent leads without money being spent on advertisements , but of course I do spend lot of time & effort in promoting it & I get decent organic traffic through Google search results as well.
I have been receiving lot of offers for the domain , but still I didn’t fall for it.
Why I say this ?
When you wanted to promote yourself & your business , you should do a thorough research on acquiring a domain in such a way that there will be no legal complications in present / future & the name should also be related to the kind of work you do.
Once you do thorough due diligence the very beginning , then you don’t have to look back 🙂
Sorry for making this post very lengthy one , but wanted to explain a bit.
Thanks for reading.