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Goldman Sachs’ Marcus brand gets ready to launch credit card

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Domain names related to new credit card are registered at brand protection domain name registrar.

Goldman Sachs’ Marcus consumer financial products brand appears to be getting ready to launch a credit card.

Late last year (or early this year) it acquired a credit card startup. As of today, the company still hasn’t launched a consumer credit card.

But plans for a credit card appear to be shifting into high gear. In recent days a company has registered many domain names related to a Marcus credit card.

Oddly, the domains have been registered with Whois privacy at Mark Monitor. Mark Monitor is a brand protection registrar and customers don’t squat on other company’s brands there. But Goldman Sach’s main domain names are registered with rival brand protection registrar CSC.

Intriguingly, for one day the domain name gsmarcuscard.com was registered to Black Card, LLC before the Whois record was updated to Whois privacy. Black Card LLC offers a premium credit card issued by Barclays Bank Delaware.

It’s possible we’re looking at a partnership here.

Here are the domains registered in the past few days:

marcuscardconcierge.com
marcuscardexperiences.com
marcuscardrewards.com
marcuscardtravel.com
marcuscardvip.com
mymarcuscard.com
mymarcuscardrewards.com
gsmarcuscard.com
marcusblackcard.com
marcusdiamondcard.com
marcusgoldcard.com
marcusluxurycard.com
marcusluxurycardblack.com
marcusluxurycardconcierge.com
marcusluxurycardexperiences.com
marcusluxurycardgold.com
marcusluxurycardmagazine.com
marcusluxurycardrewards.com
marcusluxurycardtitanium.com
marcusluxurycardtravel.com
marcusmagazine.com
marcustitanium.com
marcustitaniumcard.com
marcustuition.com
marcustuitioncard.com
mymarcusblack.com
mymarcusblackcard.com
mymarcusdiamondcard.com
mymarcusgold.com
mymarcusgoldcard.com
mymarcusluxurycard.com
mymarcustitanium.com
mymarcustitaniumcard.com
mymarcustuitioncard.com

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ILQ Australia Pty Ltd is a reverse domain name hijacker

by — Policy & Law 1 Comment

Company filed cybersquatting complaint against FairMarkets.com after failing to buy domain name from its rightful owner.

A financial products company called ILQ Australia Pty Ltd has been found guilty of reverse domain name hijacking over the domain name FairMarkets.com. The company is also associated with BrokerMate Pty Ltd.

It filed the UDRP against a financial expert who acquired the domain name for $3,788 in 2014. That’s prior to when the complainant claims trademark rights. Based on the decision, it appears that the complainant has recent aspirations to use the term “Fair Markets”. It has registered a couple of alternative domain names such as fair.markets and fairmarkets.com.au. At the time of the filing, neither were in use. The company recently launched a site on Fair.markets. In any event, its claimed trademark rights post-date the registration of the domain.

The panel found ILQ Australia failed to prove any of the three elements of the UDRP.

It is a fairly classic “Plan B” reverse domain name hijacking. The complainant tried to buy the domain name. After escalating its offer and failing to strike a deal, it filed a cybersquatting complaint.

Debrett G. Lyons was the panelist for National Arbitration Forum. ILQ was represented by James O’Neill. LinkedIn shows that he’s the Chief Compliance Officer for the company.

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Compare Ninja Ltd. makes egregious reverse domain name hijacking attempt

by — Policy & Law 3 Comments

Company files baseless cybersquatting claim after failing to buy domain name.

Compare Ninja Ltd., which operates the site ticket-compare.com, has been found to have engaged in reverse domain name hijacking for the domain name TicketCompare.com.

The company filed a cybersquatting complaint against the domain name with World Intellectual Property Organization.

Ticketcompare.com was registered well before the company started using ticket-compare.com, which would explain its choice of a hyphenated domain name.

It first tried to buy the domain name but didn’t like the asking price. Over a year later it sent cease & desist letters to the domain owner. When the domain owner didn’t respond, it filed a UDRP.

Compare Ninja Ltd failed on all three elements required to win a UDRP.

In finding reverse domain name hijacking, the three-member World Intellectual Property Organization panel wrote:

The Complainant’s conduct follows the well-travelled route of a successive three-pronged attempt to gain control of a domain name, usually a “.com” domain name, upon which the relevant complainant simply has no possible claim.

Compare Ninja’s lawyer, Assaf Cohen Sidon, claims on his LinkedIn page to specialize in internet and intellectual property law.

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ICANN puts .Pharmacy operator National Association of Board of Pharmacy on notice

by — Policy & Law 0 Comments

Group must cure two breaches or face termination of its right to operate the .Pharmacy top level domain.

ICANN has sent a breach notice (pdf) to .pharmacy top level domain operator National Association of Board of Pharmacy.

The breach notice is the result of the Public Interest Commitment Dispute Resolution Procedure (PICDRP). Canadawide Pharmacy Ltd filed the dispute after being denied the registration of the canadawidepharmacy.pharmacy domain name.

The registration was denied, in part, based on Canadawide allegedly having been associated with some pharmacies that sent drugs to locations in which they weren’t licensed.

But the PICDRP panel noted that the .Pharmacy operator didn’t provide evidence of this link to the other pharmacies, and that it appears that Canadawide is no longer affiliated with those pharmacies.

The breach notice cites National Association of Board of Pharmacy for

NABP’s failure to operate the top-level domain (“TLD”) pharmacy in a transparent manner consistent with general principles of openness and non-discrimination by establishing, publishing and adhering to clear registration policies, as required by Section 3.c. of Specification 11 of the RA.

and

NABP’s failure to publish on its website a primary contact for handling inquiries related to malicious conduct in the TLD feedback, as required by Section 4.1 of Specification 6 of the RA.

The registry operator has until August 11 to comply or ICANN may commence a termination process.

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New Zealand’s .NZ administrator sues DomainTools

by — Services 13 Comments

Country code administrator says that DomainTools is violating its Whois Terms of Use.

Domain Name Commission Limited (DNCL), the group that oversees New Zealand’s .nz country code domain namespace, has sued (large pdf) DomainTools over its collection of .nz Whois records.

The company claims that DomainTools’ bulk collection of .nz Whois records violates its terms of use. Its Whois terms were updated in 2016 to explicitly prohibit publishing historical versions of Whois data. The terms also prohibit sending “high volume WHOIS queries with the effect of downloading part of or all of the .nz Register or collecting register data or records”.

It’s the publication of historical data that seems to have drawn the ire of DNCL. It recently added an Individual Registrant Privacy Option (“IRPO”) to allow some .nz registrants to keep their information private. But their historical information is available at DomainTools even once they add privacy.

DNCL reached out to DomainTools last year in an effort to resolve the issue, but it wasn’t happy with the progress it was making. It filed the lawsuit last month and is requesting a preliminary injunction against DomainTools.

The lawsuit comes at a bad time for DomainTools. It is currently coping with the fallout of GDPR, which has restricted the company’s access to Whois records across most top level domain names overseen by ICANN.

A representative of DomainTools declined to comment due to the ongoing litigation.

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