A rare case over .do domain names.
eBay has filed a complaint with World Intellectual Property Organization for four domain names that use the Dominican Republic top level domain .do. The four domains are:
ebay.com.do
ebay.do
paypal.com.do
paypal.do
What I find interesting about this case is what you see if you visit any of the domains:
DOMAIN FOR SALE
We have adquire this domain in a bulk domain purchase and due to the nature of the domain name it is neccesary to stress out the following statements and facts:
-This is a business transaction we do not do favors.
-We buy generic latin america domain names.
-We are not related and we do not want to be related in any political way or kind with any political party in Dominican Republic.
-This purchase is on the basics of “first come first serve”, who pays owns the domain and we will transfer it.
-Allow 2hrs to verify payment and transfer the domain. We do not transfer domain without payment verification by PayPal.
-Takes 24hrs for complete transer.
Assuming the .do policy is similar to UDRP you can bet eBay will win this case.
Dan says
Hi Andrew,
I have no doubt “E-bay” will win these cases…they are great domain names, but they are just way to obvious of TM & Intellectual property right infringements. IMHO
E-Bay, has a long history of ‘furiously’ going after any domains, especially with an ‘e’ and ‘bay’ in a domain name.
They won some case’s on domains with the word ‘bay’ in them…that were questionable decisions, at best.
They monitor “EBay” so well, if you were to reg especially a .com ~ .net ~ .org with ebay anywhere in the domain name…they will have a C/D order in your mailbox within 10 days 😉
Best,
Dan
nony says
What I find funny is the seller of this names want PAYPAL payment for EBAY/PAYPAL TM names! LOL! Talk about taking the piss!
Uzoma says
There are many to fault here.
1. There shouldn’t have been more than .COM in internet names. That way, whoever registers ebay.com owns all there’s to own. So, we fault ICANN and everybody else involved in pumping out gTLDs, ccTLDs, and what have you.
2. We fault ebay for not registering their name in every goddamned extension in the world.
3. We also fault ebay when it comes to “laches”, I believe it applies here. They took too long to want the names
4. We blame the registrars for selling it to those poor Dominicans 🙂
…and so on and so forth.