Bank wins domain name that showed ads for banks.
I disagree with the decision but I also place some blame on the domain name owner.
The bank relied on a trademark for CB&T and the panelist agreed that the domain is confusingly similar to CB&T because “n” is sometimes used to represent “and”.
For its part, domain name owner ABC Productions says it owns 1,850 four-letter domain names as an investment.
While the case wasn’t particularly well defended (based on my reading), the bigger issue seems to be that the domain name is parked and shows ads for banking services.
I disagree with panelist Richard Page’s statement that he found “unlikely that Respondent registered the Disputed Domain Name independently without the intent to take advantage of its significance as a trademark”, but what comes after that is key:
This is particularly evident based on the use put forth by Respondent, namely hosting sponsored links to third-party sites related to banking. Such use is telling of Respondent’s bad faith intent to illegitimately benefit from confusion with Complainant’s CB&T Marks.
I have little doubt the domain was registered because of the inherent value of four-letter domain names. But parking it and letting bank ads be displayed was a mistake.
Parking domain names can be a way to establish rights in the domain for advertising services, but you need to be careful with acronym domain names.
It’s important to block ads that can infringe. That sunk him before he even began. 1 member panel, strike 2 and strike 3 before even reading the defense. And if it was not “Well defended” as you stated, that only put his other domains at risk. Domainers need to stop being CHEAP. A 3 member panel is INSURANCE unless you like losing assets, money and time.
Agree with the king. Reminds me of the sdlg.com decision, where the respondent sued after a bad decision. This domainer should do the same.
As a domain investor with about the same amount of domains, especially generic LLL/LLLL names – is there truly an effective way to proactively make sure there are NO potential infringing ads on all my parked domains? It seems like I could spend years checking any conflicts or possible infringements against thousands of domains…
Why park these domains with ads? How much are you making from the ads vs. the risk of a udrp?
Perhaps I misunderstood conflicting advice I’ve read in the past to encourage using ads to prove a legitimate business purpose for holding the domains (of ad revenue). I guess for generic short domains its less of an issue
Using ads that relate to the descriptive nature of the domain can help you. Using ones related to a trademark use will hurt you.
Right, so getting back to my original question (and sorry to belabor this) how does one efficiently manage that on hundreds or thousands of parked domains?
My advice would be to not park them or to send them to parked pages hat don’t adjust keywords over time. Uniregistry will let you select a category of ads for each domain.
Just use Undeveloped or a similar clean For Sale page. I, for one, can live without those $10 monthly payments from Sedo for thousands of page hits.
CBNT.com was returned to me last week. Thank you to the bank executives and their lawyer who kindly and expeditiously made this happen after I sent them a copy of the complaint I prepared to file in federal court. I want to be clear, I have legitimate use rights to every one of the 6500+ domains I own and I will file a complaint in federal court when necessary to protect my property and property rights against any party who files a UDRP complaint against me.
It’s important for domainers to know that although registrars have agreed to abide by UDRP rules, which includes implementing WIPO decisions, these decisions are merely the views and recommendations from panelists who often get it wrong. WIPO decisions are not binding in a court of law so don’t get on your high horse if you win and don’t give up if you lose.
Congratulations, Todd.
I wish for your business grows and congratulations.