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Owner of Zon.Tools sues to get ZonTools.com domain name

by — Policy & Law 9 Comments

Plaintiff claims owner of matching .com is cybersquatting.

Picture of judge in robe

The owner of the domain name Zon.Tools filed a lawsuit (pdf) in an effort to get the domain name ZonTools.com.

Zon Tools, Inc offers tools at Zon.Tools to help Amazon sellers with sponsored products bidding. It registered Zon.Tools in July 2017.

The owner of ZonTools.com uses its domain name to offer similar tools as well as other Amazon seller tools such as review management. It registered the domain name in July 2018.

You might ask yourself why Zon Tools didn’t register ZonTools.com when it registered Zon.Tools. The answer is simple: ZonTools.com was registered in back in 2013 but expired in 2018. It went through the entire deletion cycle and then the defendant domain name was registered.

This shows one of the risks of registering a new TLD when you don’t own the “matching” .com. Of course, this can work both ways. If ZonTools.com was the first registered domain, someone could use Zon.Tools in a way that confuses users.

Karl S. Kronenberger is representing Zon Tools, Inc. in the in rem lawsuit. I’m a bit surprised that the lawsuit was filed in California rather than Virginia where .com registry Verisign is headquartered, but the lawsuit notes that Verisign has an office in the jurisdiction where the case was filed.

DomainTools appeals injunction decision in .NZ case

by — Policy & Law 5 Comments

Cyber security service wants injunction thrown out.

Whois data and security service DomainTools has appealed a preliminary injunction brought against it by .NZ registry Domain Name Commission Limited (DNCL).

DNCL sued DomainTools in June 2018 over DomainTools’ collection and publication of .NZ Whois data. It argued that DomainTools’ actions violated DNCL’s terms of service, which are provided with each Port 43 Whois query result.

A Federal District judge granted an injunction that ordered DomainTools to not collect any more .NZ Whois records and to remove any previously published records while the lawsuit proceeded.

DomainTools appealed the decision to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.

In its opening brief (pdf), DomainTools argues that DNCL’s terms of service were not binding on DomainTools because of how the terms of service were published. Including the terms with each Whois result is considered a “browsewrap” agreement; the other party does not check a box or make any other affirmative action to agree to the terms.

DomainTools notes that “The lower court acknowledged that so-called “browsewrap” agreements like DNCL’s terms of use are not enforceable unless “the user has actual or constructive knowledge of the [terms of use].” In the court’s view, however, DomainTools’ repeat queries established sufficient knowledge.”

The company says that the lower court’s view should not apply because all of DomainTools’ Whois queries were “conducted by an automated program on a dedicated computer-to-computer channel acting without human intervention.”

It also says that the terms were written in a way that didn’t suggest that DomainTools’ use of the data violated the terms.

DomainTools wants the court to weigh the negative impact to DomainTools’ customers against the impact on .NZ registrants whose information is published.

AddictingGames.com sues Addicting.com, claiming cybersquatting

by — Policy & Law 15 Comments

Addicting.com parked page filled with links for games.

Addicting Games screenshot

The popular online game site Addicting Games filed an in rem lawsuit (pdf) yesterday against the domain name Addicting.com, claiming that the owner of the domain is cybersquatting. Addicting Games is owned by Bill Karamouzis, who was on DNW Podcast #178.

The lawsuit points out that almost all the pay-per-click links on Addicting.com, which is parked at Uniregistry, are related to games. The first link is “Addicting Games”.

One big question is when the current owner of the domain acquired it.

The lawsuit alleges:

On February 21, 2018, the registrant of the domain Addicting.com was changed from Domain Hostmaster, Customer ID : 85528474484681 to Savvy Investments, LLC Privacy ID #735277, and the registrar was changed from Fabulous.com Pty Ltd to Sea Wash, LLC.

Sea Wasp, LLC is just the business name for Fabulous, so the registrar didn’t actually change.

The Whois record is private going back to the end of 2011.

From at least as early as 2004 until the record was private, the domain was owned by a registrant in Vietnam. The domain has been parked with Uniregistry since at least 2013. So I suspect that there was not an ownership change this year, although it’s possible.

There’s a chance that the domain is currently owned by the same entity that owned it since at least 2004, which is before Addicting Games existed.

That said, the links on the parked page (which have been there since at least 2013) are definitely problematic and could present a trademark problem for the domain owner.

It will be interesting to see if the owner of Addicting.com defends the domain name in court.

David Weslow of Wiley Rein LLP is representing Addicting Games.

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.

Lawsuit filed to recover EQN.com domain name

by — Policy & Law 0 Comments

Domain was stolen in 2016, according to lawsuit.

A California company has filed a lawsuit (pdf) to recover the domain name EQN.com, which it says was stolen from its Enom account.

Blackshore Properties, Inc. of San Marino, California acquired EQN.com in a NameJet auction in 2011 for $4,950.

According to DomainTools historical Whois records, the domain name was transferred to a Chinese registrant at domain registrar 22.cn between May 5, 2016 and September 23, 2016. The lawsuit alleges that this transfer was theft.

The suit was filed in U.S. District Court in Virginia where .com registry Verisign is located. Assuming no one shows up to defend the in rem lawsuit, the just will likely enter an order of default judgment and order Verisign to transfer the domain name.