Panelist questions Zions Bank’s decision to file a UDRP.
He recently decided a case involving Zions Bank. He found in favor of a person in Pakistan who registered ZionVPN.com to start a VPN internet service.
It was quite clear what the registrant’s intention with the domain was, as he also registered ZionProxy.com (which was not part of the UDRP).
This was an overreach on the part of Zions Bank. It has won lots of UDRPs in the past, but those were for domains with Zions in them plus a financial term. Here, an innocent person used the dictionary term Zion and attached it to a non-financial term.
Willoughby did not find Zions Bank guilty of reverse domain name hijacking. But he did two things that should be applauded:
1. He considered reverse domain name hijacking even though the respondent didn’t ask for it. Yes, he declined to find it, but by considering it he has tacitly pointed out that Zions should be more careful before filing future cases. He also gets points for noting that panelists should consider RDNH even when it is not asked for.
2. He called out Zions Bank for what was likely boilerplate but invalid language in its complaint, and suggests that the bank should have tried to get more information before filing the complaint:
The Complainant asserts without any supporting evidence: “The Respondent is clearly trying to exploit the goodwill of Complainant and its trademarks by diverting customers of Complainant from Complainant’s website to Respondent’s website for commercial gain or malicious purposes by creating a likelihood of confusion with Complainants trademarks”. While the Panel has some sympathy with the Complainant in that it had no information of any kind on the Respondent, the use of the word “clearly” in the above quote is the Panel’s view over the top. The Complainant might have been in a better position to make such a claim if it had attempted to approach the Respondent in advance by way of a pre-Complaint communication and then received an unhelpful response.
Mr. Willoughby appears to be one of those WIPO panelists that expands on every case’s particulars with a passionate, articulated response – instead of depending on “copy/paste” cookie-cutter templates:
See: http://domaingang.com/domain-law/cyberbit-com-owner-wins-udrp-with-reverse-domain-name-hijacking-finding/
Respondent didn’t ask for RDNH yet Tony discussed it.
This time they got away with it maybe because it was the first time and respondent didn’t make a case for it. Next time they should be hit with RDNH.
I hope that the result of this is they think harder before filing another UDRP like this. They obviously have a cybersquatting problem (like many banks) but need to only go after actual cybersquatting.
Zion, in the Respondents domain names, does not equal Zions, the trademark. RDNH.
Perhaps. The Complainant alleged typo-squatting, rather far-fetched, as the domain’s use is for VPN services.
You know, it’s kind of interesting. Zions Bank owns ZionsVPN.com, so that’s probably why this came up on their radar.
Until you pointed that out, I was ready to criticize Zions Bank. But now I see why they assumed cybersquatting:
ZionsVPN.com – reg’d June 13, 2016
ZionVPN.com – reg’d January 6, 2017
It’s astonishing, frankly, that the 2nd domain was registered about 6 months after the bank registered theirs. The name is quite specific, and nobody had cared to register either version during the previous 3 decades? Yet suddenly 2 people think up pretty much the same idea within 6 months of one another? That’s not impossible, but it’s enough to arouse suspicion or skepticism.
In Utah there are a lot of different Zions. Bank employees visit Zion national park and stay at Zion lodge, etc. With all those local businesses and websites, it’s clear the bank isn’t trying to squash other Zion domains willy nilly.
Part of what makes me suspicious here is the nationality of the registrant. Pakistan is a muslim country. Zionism is associated with Israel. As much as I love both muslims and jews, everybody knows there’s some tension between them where Zionism is concerned. So a brand called “Zion” wouldn’t go over well inside Pakistan, would it? Unless I’m missing something, I think it would be an unlikely naming choice for a Pakistani business. For that reason, it’s harder to see a legitimate intent here and easier to imagine cybersquatting.
Just to be clear, I’m not alleging cybersquatting. But I can see why the bank would come to that conclusion and file this UDRP.
Yet he also registered Zionproxy and the bank doesn’t own zionsproxy
@Andrew Allemann,
Right. Might not be cybersquatting at all. Only saying that it’s understandable why they might perceive it that way.
A more thorough examination would include looking at ZionProxy.com and other domain registration behavior. Few companies look beyond the 1 offending domain, though. They should, but they don’t.
Very hard to beat this LDS or mormon company they are worth billions and own everything in Utah and Nevada.
@Don,
Why do you characterize Zion’s Bank as an “LDS or mormon company”? Sure, they’re based in Utah; so they undoubtedly have plenty of mormon customers, employees, and executives. But it’s not as if they’re owned by the LDS Church.
What decent bank isn’t “worth billions”?
Should we really describe every company owned or operated by a mormon as a “mormon company”? Keep in mind, 1 out of 50 Americans is mormon. So I guess there are a lot of companies we ought to be wary of. Impossible to compete with JetBlue or Marriott, since those “mormon companies” have the secret power of the LDS Church behind them.
To me it sounds like you might have fallen for a 150-year-old prejudice that insinuates mormons are conspiratorial, that the mormon church has its tentacles in everything, and so forth. Much the same thing has been said of jewish owned businesses. In general, I think it’s a bad idea to paint any company as a “[disliked religion] company”.
Having gone to college in Utah, I promise you Zions Bank has plenty of local competition from Wells Fargo and a host of smaller banks and credit unions. Oh, and just to preempt the question: No, as an atheist, I’m not part of the conspiracy.
Well said. Jewish, Mormon, Muslim, Sikh companies, etc should be judged on the basis of what they do and not the religion of their founders..