Audi files cybersquatting complaint against owner of expensive .cars and .auto domain names.
With an annual price tag of over $2,000, you’d think that all cybersquatters would be deterred from registering famous brands in the .car, .cars and .auto top level domains.
You’d be wrong.
Car maker Audi has filed a UDRPURS against the registrant of Audi.cars and Audi.auto. Barring some bizarre circumstances, the person who registered these two domain names will lose the $5,000 he spent to register the two domain names when they are suspended.
The owner of these two domains isn’t the only person to register an expensive domain that matches the name of a car maker. Someone in China registered Audi.car (singular). As of now, no UDRP/URS has been filed against the domain name.
The Audi.cars/.auto case is the first UDRP/URS filed on the automotive-themed domain names, which are backed by a partnership between XYZ and Uniregistry.
[This story has been updated to reflect the case was a URS, not a UDRP.]
Back in the old days people at least made some money with PPC before losing the name. No traffic on these .crap names.
Could cost up to $100,000 per domain in theory.
These names should never have been sold. Horrible business.
100% correct. Who wins? The registry gains the most. Then, lawyers and the arbitration services (NAF & WIPO).
I am sure audi had an opportunity to register the 3 domains at a very high cost but I guess they would rather get 2 of them at a lower cost (udrp fees & lawyer fees) plus set a legal precedent.
It’s actually a URS complaint.
Thanks for pointing this out. I updated the story.
Reminds me of an even bigger loss on car domains:
https://domainnamewire.com/2008/11/06/porscheme-money-down-the-drain/
One can tell that one investor from Brazil operating under Minas Invest Private Holding had a bad year; back in 2008 he purchased during the land rush auctions several pricey domains, including toyota.me (acquired for the record price of $90,124.98 after 110 bids), skoda.me (acquired for $20,109.98 after 76 bids), porsche.me (acquired for $7,604.98 after 23 bids), mitsubishi.me (acquired for $6,624.98 after 115 bids), bentley.me (acquired for $174.98), and few others. Those premium sale could make any new TLD envy.
All brands should do URS instead of URDP for these type of complaints. No need to pay renewal fees for trash domains
In most cases, I don’t think it’s the registry’s duty to police the particular strings being registered.
But how hard would it be to identify the major automobile brands worldwide? There can’t be that many. We’re not talking about mom-and-pop operations here. Simply counting cars on the street today would cover the vast majority.
A registry could reserve domains like Audi.car and Toyota.cars, ensuring that only those companies could buy them.
But, as things stand, why bother? Naïve cyber squatters will pay the registries thousands only if the registries leave such domains lying around. There is no legal risk to the registry, as a URS only applies to the registrant.
To me, this seems cynical and lazy on the part of the registries.
I really can’t believe someone would pay $2500 to cybersquat on one of these. I would think the price alone would be enough of a deterrent.
Also, holding back a domain and only letting one company register it would be quite a bit of work as opposed to letting them register it through the registrar of their choosing when they want.
@Andrew Allemann,
Would it really be that much work? nTLD registries already differentiate between batches of domains based on price, and they all have reserved lists. Designating a short list of car brands as reserved would fit right in to this process.
I’m sure the registries already compiled that list of well known auto manufacturers years ago when they applied for .CARS, .CAR, and .AUTO. After all, selling to those big companies would have figured into their revenue projections.
At various registrars, many premium or reserved domains are currently unavailable to purchase even if they’re technically unregistered.
.CLUB has put up landing pages for many of its premium domains. These auto TLD registries could have directed strings for the well known vehicle brands to their own information page. Then they could have dealt directly with the ONLY buyers who could have any legitimate right to register such names. There is no need for them to be in the public registration path – except to entice cyber squatters.
A registrar’s ordinary sales funnel cannot make a compelling sales pitch on behalf of Toyota.auto or Honda.cars, whereas a registry employee might. So it’s only sensible to ensure that those domains – if not already sold – lead to a specialized sales team.
It doesn’t surprise me that someone would pay $2,500 expecting to flip Audi.auto. Newbies in the domain industry sometimes throw away thousands very quickly. And they are usually attracted to trademark infringing domains. It’s what springs to mind first even among non-domainers. When I tell a stranger about the domain aftermarket, they usually assume that means going back in time to register Walmart.com or McDonalds.com. And they’re enthusiastic about that idea. It doesn’t occur to people until later that this is unethical and risky.
I wouldn’t do it if I ran a registry. Also, .car/.cars/.auto didn’t have anything reserved.
This is not quite true. Over 100 are reserved, like Used.Cars, Rental.Cars, Luxury.Cars.
I would say 10K for each such name, but maybe these were actual dealers. The fact that used.cars is reserved though, that hurts the ext. That and new.cars should be a website to offer cars leads.