Company uses RCCL.com for corporate email and some email was misdirected.
Royal Caribbean Cruises has lost a cybersquatting claim it filed against domain broker James Booth of BQDN.com over the domain name RCC.com.
Booth has bought/sold about 250 three-letter domain names and acquired this domain with similar plans. A couple of years after acquiring the domain, he turned on an email catchall and found that people were emailing sensitive information intended for the cruise line to RCC.com. Royal Caribbean uses RCCL.com for its email addresses.
It was at this point that things get a bit confusing. Even though Booth is a broker himself, the case states that Booth hired a broker to contact Royal Caribbean about the misdirected email and inviting them to buy it. That overture stated:
“Do you want me to continue to forward these emails? / I think you have a major problem here, not just because of the confusion from your customers not getting their emails answered but also email security. At some point RCC.com is going to sell and the new owners may not be as nice to forward your info. / Let me know if you have time to talk this week.”
Booth admitted that it was “an arguably ill-considered solicitation.”
Of particular concern to Royal Caribbean is that Booth shared the emails with an apparent outside party (the domain broker). That’s a bad idea.
Still, the panel found that the domain was likely not registered to target Royal Caribbean, and instead because of the acronym value of RCC.com.
Zak Muscovitch represented Booth in the UDRP.
Kieron says
That broker was Andrew Rosener of Media Options, I was told.
Jude says
I’m shocked, MediaOptions hasn’t commented here.
It is unethical Media Options.
Francois says
Congrats James!
Kieron says
James, you were very lucky to defend the UDRP successfully and I commend you for that. Zak did a super job. That being said, it seems Media Options really put you in the firing line with an extremely naive approach citing email usage. I am surprised that Media Options have been so successful at brokering sales in the past with this kind of approach.
Jude says
Media Options – spill the beans!!!!
Sal says
Give someone a reason to sue you and they will. I always reply back to sender to correct the email address. You must have sold a domain before using this strategy, but it backfired this time.
Jude says
Do you anticipate Royal Caribbean Cruises and James Booth suing Media Options?
Manish says
Did Media Options really broker rcc.com this way? I won’t ever use them for brokerage again.
Tom says
Royal Caribbean International, another stupid and greedy company which is so poor it can not afford to buy a domain-name.
per Wikipedia:
In 1998 and 1999, the company was fined US$9 million because one of its ships, the Sovereign of the Seas, had repeatedly dumped oily waste into the ocean and tried to hide this using false records, including fake piping diagrams given to the US Coast Guard. Because the company was and is incorporated in Liberia, Royal Caribbean argued that this case was not in the jurisdiction of US courts. Despite their argument, they were unsuccessful.
thelegendaryjp says
Congrats to Zak for saving this one.