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Napoleon.com hit with UDRP. Owners fight back with lawsuit

by — Policy & Law 6 Comments

Domain owners fight back in court before UDRP is decided.

Last Month Wolf Steel, which markets fireplaces under the brand name Napoleon, filed a UDRP cybersquatting dispute against the domain name napoleon.com. The owners of the domain name are fighting back with a lawsuit.

Emmet Stephenson, Tony Stephenson and Domain.com, Inc. (not affiliated with the Endurance International Group domain name registrar) filed the suit (pdf) in Washington State on April 12.

The lawsuit states that the Stephensons registered the domain name in 1995. Since that time they have received multiple offers on the domain name, including from Wolf Steel, but have declined the offers.

Emmet Stephenson grew up in Louisiana and has long been infatuated with Napoleon Bonaparte, the lawsuit states. The Stephensons own Napoleonic artifacts such as Napoleon Bonaparte’s death mask, a plan of the Battle for Austerlitz, one of four unique clocks commissioned by Napoleon Bonaparte for his children, and various documents signed by, written by, and written to Napoleon Bonaparte.

The domain name has been parked and showed ads for fireplaces and barbeque grills, which is likely the basis for Wolf Steel’s UDRP.

Nevertheless, it seems unlikely that the Stephensons registered the domain name in bad faith to target the fireplace maker.

The Stephensons company owns a number of great domain names including Communications.com, Wireless.com, Annuities.com, Bookie.com, TX.com, Technology.com, Hut.com, and Police.com.

Attorney Derek Newman is representing the Stephensons.

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Fake token presale at Sale-Orchid.com dupes people looking for Orchid.com

by — Policy & Law 0 Comments

Lawsuit alleges that someone made away with $66,000 in fake token presale.

Even if you have a great domain name, people can get confused by other domains that use your brand name. Just ask Orchid Labs, a company creating a decentralized hosting network to avoid censorship.

According to a lawsuit (pdf) the company filed, someone set up a website at Sale-Orchid(dot)com designed to mimic the Orchid.com site. The fake site told people to send Ether in order to participate in a pre-sale of the company’s cryptocurrency tokens.

Orchid is currently in discussions with private individuals about investing, and the perpetrator sent messages to people pointing them to Sale-Orchid.com. Intriguingly, this person sent messages to people who were already in discussions with the company:

To make matters worse the perpetrators are sending e-mail messages out to various people pretending to be Orchid including potential purchasers presently in discussions regarding participation in Orchid’s actual private token sale. Such fake e-mails provide links to the fraudulent website at http://sale-orchid(dot)com.

According to the lawsuit, people have been duped out of $66,000 worth of Ether.

The court issued a temporary restraining order and the site has been taken down. But it would be pretty simple to set up another site like this.

Once GoDaddy received the TRO it deactivated the domain name and removed the Whois privacy. The Whois now shows the organization to be Orchid Labs and the name Patrick Dietzen. The order didn’t demand the transfer of the name, so I’m curious what the story is here. Maybe someone used fake information in Whois.

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Much Ado about Ado.com: Carrillo sues bus company after bad UDRP decision

by — Policy & Law 33 Comments

Domaining.com owner sues to retain ownership of Ado.com and asks for a finding of reverse domain name hijacking.

Francois Carrillo, the owner of domain blog aggregator Domaining.com, has sued (pdf) Mexican bus company Autobuses dr Oriente ADO, S.A. de C.V. after a UDRP panel ordered his domain Ado.com transferred. He is seeking the UDRP to be overturned and is asking for a penalty for reverse domain name hijacking.

The World Intellectual Property Organization UDRP decision came as a shock as the panelists handed over a valuable three-letter domain name to a Mexican company that Carrillo, who lives in France, said he hadn’t heard of when he bought the domain name. The decision also had misstatements about pricing of domain names.

The suit questions claims made by the bus company in its UDRP complaint such as the existence of U.S. trademarks. It also points out that the bus company’s lawyer in the UDRP was also an accredited UDRP panelist, suggesting potential bias by the three peer panelists. The ability for lawyers to serve as counsel in UDRP cases while also being accredited panelists is a big issue for UDRP fairness.

David Weslow of Wiley Rein LLP is representing Carrillo. Weslow has handled several similar cases that resulted in the original UDRP complainant paying to settle the case.

The case was filed in Denver because the bus company agreed to submit itself to jurisdiction there when it filed the UDRP; it is the location of NameBright, which is the registrar of record for Ado.com.

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Bank files lawsuit after domain owner forwards domain to UDRP decision

by — Policy & Law 12 Comments

Marathon Savings Bank lost a UDRP for MarathonBank.com, so it’s trying a federal lawsuit instead.

Marathon Savings Bank, located in Wisconsin, has sued (pdf) Affordable Webhosting, Inc. for cybersquatting after losing a UDRP to get the domain name MarathonBank.com. The bank uses the domain name MarathonSavingsBank.com.

It filed a UDRP against Affordable Webhosting on September 27. A single-member WIPO panel determined that the bank “has not proved by a preponderance of evidence” that the domain was registered in bad faith.

After the UDRP decision, Marathon says that the defendant forwarded the domain to a website that featured Donald Trump’s tweets.

Marathon sent a cease & desist letter to Affordable Webhosting on January 26, 2018. At that point, the company decided to forward the domain name to the WIPO UDRP decision in the case.

The bank says “Such actions were clearly intended to annoy and harass Marathon”.

That’s an interesting claim to make given the result of the UDRP.

It’s worth noting that federal lawsuits are different from UDRP and the bank will have the opportunity to depose the domain owner.

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Thousands download fake GoDaddy app in Google Play store

by — Domain Registrars 7 Comments

GoDaddy is suing unknown creator of fake GoDaddy app.

A fake GoDaddy app was available in the Google Play store earlier this month and GoDaddy believes that thousands of people downloaded the app.

The app, called GoDaddy Mobile, was available in the store from December 12 to December 15. GoDaddy informed Google of the app on December 15 and it was quickly removed.

This is the listing in the store for the fake app:

The description stated:

“[w]e are happy to introduce cPanel App for you webmasters powered by GoDaddy. You can also access your Account Products using the ‘My Account’ section from the slider!”

People who downloaded the app left negative reviews for it and didn’t realize it was not a real GoDaddy app.

GoDaddy has filed a lawsuit (pdf) in Federal District Court in Arizona to try to uncover the identity of the app’s creator. The lawsuit seeks damages for trademark infringement, false designation of origin, false advertising and registered trademark counterfeiting.

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