Large law firm tries to capture infringing domains.
Debevoise & Plimpton, an international law firm with over $1 billion in annual revenue, has filed an in rem lawsuit (pdf) against two domains it says were used for nefarious purposes.
The firm filed the lawsuit against debevoise-law .com and debevoise-laws .com. According to the law firm, the first domain was used to impersonate one of its employees and request information from a client. The domain forwards to its main website. The second domain leads to a pay-per-click landing page.
This type of spoofing email is commonly used to trick law firm clients into wiring money or disclosing personal information.
Debevoise filed the in rem lawsuit against the domain names in U.S. District Court in the Eastern District of Virginia. This is where .com registry Verisign is located, and the court there often request that Verisign suspend domain names.
The lawsuit claims the domain names are committing trademark cyberpiracy.
I received one of those In Rem lawsuits once, from Virginia. Dealt with Judge on telephone and very nice Judge in fact. Even though I was on overseas call was a doddle. The complainant ended up buying the domain with Judge’s agreement.
That’s a nice outcome. And rare one too.
It would be interesting to hear what you said.
Which domain name was it?