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This is a really dirty UDRP filing

by — Policy & Law 0 Comments

Some of the Complainant’s claims are easily disproven.

I’m often amazed by cybersquatting claims under UDRP. This weekend I read a case that was extremely disturbing.

Grimco, Inc., a distributor of products to the sign industry, filed a UDRP against the domain name Briteline.com. Briteline.com is owned by Mike Forde of Florida and has a registrant name of Briteline Consulting.

Forde was unable to respond to the UDRP. According to a note the National Arbitration Forum (NAF) received from a person identifying herself as Forde’s sister, he sustained a serious head injury this summer.

What bothers me about this filing is that I can easily show that this is not a case of cybersquatting under UDRP with about five minutes of research.

According to the decision published by NAF, Grimco argued:

Respondent undoubtedly was aware of Complainant and its BRITELINE mark as the Domain Name prominently features the BRITELINE mark and Complainant’s rights in the BRITELINE mark predate Respondent’s registration of the domain name.

Grimco claims common law rights dating to 2004. But the domain was registered in 1996! A quick look at historical Whois records shows that Forde has owned the domain since at least 2001 (and he was very likely the original registrant.)

The published decision also states that Grimco argued:

Respondent has no rights or legitimate interests in the Domain Name.

Again, this is easily disproven. The Whois record shows a registrant organization of Briteline Consulting.

Panelist Charles Kuechenmeister noted:

The name of the registrant organization contains the name “Briteline” but there is no evidence as to whether or the manner in which Respondent may have used this name in connection with a business, when any such use began, or the extent to which Respondent may actually have become known by that name.

Fair enough. Given that Forde did not respond to the case, the panelist had no proof of a connection.

But with a simple Google search for Mike Forde briteline consulting I discovered this business filing. It shows that a man named Michael Forde living at the same address listed in Whois started a business called Briteline Consulting in 1996, the same year the domain was registered.

I understand that the panelist doesn’t need to do this search (and given the outcome of the case it doesn’t really matter) but the Complainant could have easily discovered this.

Kuechenmeister denied Grimco’s case because the 1996 registration could not have been made in bad faith given the Complainant’s claimed trademark date. He should have gone further and considered a filing in abuse of the policy.

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It’s time to make snippeting “opt-out”

by — Policy & Law 3 Comments

Don’t harm small publishers with laws that only benefit large publishers.

In September I wrote about the European Union’s proposed copyright rules. One controversial aspect of these rules is to force websites to pay to snippet content from another website. A prime example is Google News, which publishes the headline and a small snippet from articles.

Google just published a blog post about what it thinks the ramifications of such a rule will be. It concurs with what I wrote in September: such a move would mostly harm small publishers.

As a small publisher myself, I rely on Google News to help get my content in front of people who might otherwise not see it. Everyone sees the latest post from The Wall Street Journal, New York Times and other major publications. Smaller publishers don’t have this luxury.

Beyond just the immediate eyeballs, Google News also helps me get my stories picked up by larger publications, which in turn send more traffic to this site.

I understand why large publishers have concerns about Google News. It has become the starting point for many people seeking news. As I wrote previously:

Big publications might be frustrated that people treat Google News as their news destination rather than going directly to the news site’s homepage. But there are huge societal benefits to this. I get much more diverse viewpoints on Google News than I do on a news site, whether that’s MSNBC or Fox News.

At the same time, some people are frustrated with Google search’s featured snippets. These are the boxes that sometimes show in search results that pull out at least part of the information you’re seeking:

These are the holy grail for most website owners right now. I hear from people who say the click-throughs from these featured snippets are very high. At the same time, some people don’t like how a searcher might get the answer they seek without visiting the site. SEO thought leader Rand Fishkin has been particularly vocal about how websites should be able to opt-out of these snippets.

And that gets me to a proposed resolution. Rather than making snippets–whether in news or search results–something that sites need to get permission to use, let’s make an opt-out standard. Sites can already opt out of being included in search results. Let’s add a couple of other options in robots.txt for opting out of certain types of snippets.

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Afilias files for Independent Review on .Web, further delaying domain name

by — Policy & Law 2 Comments

It’s still going to be a long time before .web domain names are available to register.

Following a lengthy ICANN process and failed lawsuit filed by Donuts, Afilias has filed a complaint about .Web under ICANN’s Independent Review Process.

Here’s the backstory:

Nu Dot Co, a business founded by .Co’s founders, applied for the .web top level domain. At some point after applying, Verisign (NASDAQ: VRSN) decided it wanted to own .web and worked out a deal with Nu Dot Co in which Nu Dot Co would bid in the auction and Verisign would then buy the top level domain from it.

Nu Dot Co won the auction for $135 million, which was the amount of the second highest bid placed by Afilias.

Donuts subsequently sued, upset that Nu Dot Co pushed for an ICANN auction-of-last-resort in which the losers didn’t get to split the proceeds. Donuts lost its battle.

After Donuts exhausted its options, Afilias picked up the baton and filed for cooperative engagement with ICANN. Now it has escalated to the Independent Review Process.

In its filing, Afilias wrote:

…by failing to implement faithfully the New gTLD Program Rules, ICANN is enabling VeriSign to acquire the .WEB gTLD, the next closest competitor to VeriSign’s monopoly, and in so doing has eviscerated one of the central pillars of the New gTLD Program: to introduce and promote competition in the Internet namespace in order to break VeriSign’s monopoly.

It’s worth noting that neither Donuts nor Afilias filed complaints over an auction for .blog that had similar circumstances. The only differences were that it was a private auction and Automattic (WordPress) backed the winner.

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.Be will take down bad domains in 24 hours

by — Policy & Law 1 Comment

New policy speeds up old process for blocking domains used for fake web stores and phishing.

A new policy will help take down .be domains within 24 hours when used for fraudulent purposes, such as phishing.

DNS Belgium, the group that manages Belgium’s .be country code domain, announced that it will start taking down domains used for fraudulent purposes within as little as 24 hours. The new policy goes into effect on December 1.

The group can delete domain names at the request of FPS Economy, which is sort of like the trade and economic competitiveness arm of the government.

Names used for sites selling fraudulent goods or phishing websites can be blocked within 24 hours. The registrant has two weeks to respond to such action and the domains will be deleted after 6 months.

Previously, FPS Economy couldn’t ask DNS Belgium to block websites based on content, only fraudulent or inaccurate identification data. An application had to be filed with the crown prosecution service in order to block a domain, a process which takes at least two weeks.

DNS Belgium says there are “several hundreds” of fraudulent websites each year.

This approach differs from some other country codes in Europe. For example, Denmark has found that cracking down on false ownership information has eliminated almost all sites used for fake stores. You can learn more about Denmark’s approach on DNW Podcast #208.

 

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Stanley Pace challenges another UDRP decision in court

by — Policy & Law 5 Comments

Lawsuit filed to halt transfer of Lascal.com.

Stanley Pace, who has a history of UDRP cases as well as challenging adverse decisions in court, has filed a lawsuit (pdf) in an effort to overturn a decision against his domain name Lascal.com.

Joran Lundh, who is associated with the stroller and kids safety business Lascal, filed a complaint against Lascal.com with World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) in August.

Pace acquired the domain name in 2016 when it expired. He argued that he registered it because Lascal is a surname and a term to described planned roads between Las Vegas and California.

The single-member WIPO panel agreed with Lundh that Pace was cybersquatting with his registration of lascal.com and ordered the domain name to be transferred.

In response, Pace filed a lawsuit arguing this is a case of reverse domain name hijacking. He is asking a court for declaratory relief and attorney’s fees.

Pace recently moved from Texas to Washington and hired Seattle-based lawyer Derek Newman to represent him in the lawsuit. (Steven Rinehart represented Pace in the UDRP.)

Lundh, a Swedish citizen located in Hong Kong, submitted to jurisdiction in Pace’s location when he filed the UDRP.

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